


Milk Teeth

by freezefawn



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Body Image, Coming of Age, Dialogue Heavy, Eating Disorders, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Internalized Homophobia & Biphobia, M/M, Oral Sex, Post-Season/Series 03, Punk Rock, Season/Series 03, Slow Burn, possible consent issues due to alcohol
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:46:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 56,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21836947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freezefawn/pseuds/freezefawn
Summary: Steve learns how to be an adult. Billy gets in touch with his inner child.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 127
Kudos: 283





	1. PUNK SHOW [1/2]

It’s twenty-four minutes to closing, and Steve’s ready to throw himself overboard. 

He stands behind a cold glass case, staring down at a pastel palette of ice cream. Swirling a rag around to the beat of the nautical-themed jingle that blares from the speakers overhead, worming its way into the deepest recesses of his mind. At 3 AM he’ll be hearing it while he stares at his bedroom ceiling. 

Robin lounges against the window behind him, a pencil in her left hand and a stapled document in her right. Nibbling her lip, she scribbles notes on her script for the _Wizard of Oz_ , which the drama club will put on in the fall. Robin’s just a techie—she giggles involuntarily when put under a spotlight—but she still has to know every damn word ‘cause she’s stage manager or whatever. 

Steve sighs, eyeing the stragglers left scattered around the seating area. The boat booth has been commandeered by a trio of, like, sixth grade girls, who shriek, pushing at each other in outrage and delight, gesticulating at the magazine they’re all reading so that sticky crumpled napkins roll to the floor. A guy and a girl sit at one of the little tables along the center of the shop, making eyes at each other over a hot fudge sundae, each toying with their red spoon. They’re sophomores or juniors, probably, and Steve wishes they’d go be happy somewhere else. 

“So what did you want to study anyway?” 

“Huh?” Steve turns to see Robin’s laid her script and pencil down to fidget with the bright tangle of her bracelets. 

“In college?” she prompts, arching a mocking eyebrow. 

“Oh. Shit, I don’t know. Business. I don’t know.” 

“Big dreams there, Harrington.” 

Steve smacks the rag down on the counter, then settles against it, crossing his arms. “That’s the whole point, _Buckley,_ you go to college and you figure that shit out.” 

“That seems like a waste of money,” Robin observes. 

“Yeah, okay. So I guess you at age seventeen know exactly what you want to do with your life.” 

“No, you’re right, it’s overwhelming. Part of me is totally set on being a soundtrack composer. But then I think, what about theatrical interpreting? Or chemistry. I go back and forth.” 

Steve wipes a hand across his face. Feels a teensy bit like crying. 

“Hey, Steve, don’t worry. You’ve got time.” Robin’s usual dry tone is tinged with something sympathetic. 

Steve shakes his head, holding his hands up to look at them, the backs and the palms. “I’m not _good_ at anything.” 

“Incoming.” Steve looks up to see Robin’s gone alert, bunnylike, eyes tracking something behind him. Then she reaches up and slams the window shut, leaving him to die like always. 

Shutting his eyes, Steve wipes his face blank before turning around. He yanks off the sailor hat, stuffs it in the space under the register, and resumes pretending to clean the freezer, sneaking glances from behind its flimsy shield. 

Up struts Billy Hargrove, shoulders back like a preening lion. Looking around at the checkered floor and pinstripe walls like he just happened to wander in. 

Today he wears cutoff shorts and a Misfits t-shirt someone’s absolutely butchered. Slashed the neck wide so his gold throat goes on and on. Ripped off the sleeves to unleash his huge shoulders. Cut the hem just under the skull’s pointy chin, a jagged curve that ripples as he moves, winking over his belly button. 

“Uh, wow,” Steve says, ‘cause this look is a lot, even for Billy. 

Baring his teeth, Billy drapes himself over the case, putting his fierce face inches from Steve’s. His arms sprawl across the top, sending example cups tumbling over the edge: small, medium, and large all go bouncing off Steve’s shoes. Billy has a spiked cuff around his wrist, a smaller leather cord coiling from underneath it. Half a dozen rings on his fingers. And against his will Steve backs up—he’s felt one of those rings split his skin.

The thing is, Steve’s not scared of Billy. Not really. Billy’s a freak, but he’s no trans-dimensional monster. Still, it’s all wrapped up together, the things that happened that night—the dogs and the dark and Billy Hargrove’s rage. ‘Cause Billy would have killed him just as dead as one of those dogs. 

After that, Billy didn’t speak to Steve all year. They avoided each other as much as two people can while sharing a basketball court. Then the night came, a week into Steve’s tenure at Scoops Ahoy, when Billy had slunk in with Max, bought her two scoops of blue bubblegum with extra sprinkles. He’d looked pissy when they came in, like this was some enforced act of kindness, but he perked right up when he saw Steve in his uniform. Got such a kick out of it, in fact, he keeps coming back about twice a week, meeting Max at Scoops whenever he picks her up from the mall. 

Billy’s different, glowing from the summer sun. He’s still a smarmy, sociopathic dickhead, and he makes Steve want to hang himself with his fucking neckerchief, but he’s mellower. Relatively speaking. Mellower than murderous is still not that mellow. 

“Hello to you too,” he drawls, now. “Or should I say, ‘ahoy, matey.’” And it should sound stupid when he growls in that pirate voice, but it doesn’t. It’s. Uh.

“Order something or get out. We’re getting ready to close.” 

Billy puts on this pout that Steve wants to punch off him. “Not gonna spoil me like one of your brats? And here I thought we were friends.” He leans his cheek into his palm, dimpling it. 

“We’re obviously not.”

“Well, if you’re gonna be like that…” but Billy’s grinning again, and it’s one of his less threatening grins. Sharklike, but like… a happy shark. “I’ll get a chocolate cone,” he decides, jabbing a finger down at the near-empty chocolate bucket, as if Steve could forget where it was.

Billy always orders the most basic flavors: chocolate, vanilla, strawberry. One scoop, no toppings. 

“Fine.” The freezer screeches faintly as Steve slides it open. Billy’s bare abdomen has plastered itself to the glass on the opposite side, flesh so firm it hardly seems to squish. 

Blinking hard, Steve grabs a scoop from the dipper well behind him, a cone off the top of the stack. Here’s Steve thinking he’s just about mastered his scoop, got the _S_ shape down like Logan-from-first-shift showed him on training day. But his hands are clumsy under Billy’s microscope eyes.

Finally, he hands over the chocolate cone. Billy makes sure to maximize the contact between their fingers, sliding those cold rings all over him.

“That’ll be fifty-five cents,” says Steve, sidling over to the register. He feels like he needs a shower. 

Billy gives the cone a long thoughtful lick as he follows, fishing around in his pocket. He flops his wallet down on the counter, withdraws a buck one-handed and holds it out to Steve. “Keep the change.”

Steve punches a button on the register and the drawer shoots open with a ding. He stuffs in Billy’s money, grabs a quarter and two dimes and flings them in the tip jar. “I’m not singing the song.”

“Flouting company policy? Oh Stevie. For shame,” Billy tuts, grinning wickedly. 

“I don’t give a shit.” 

Billy licks all the way around the glob of his ice cream, rotating the cone with a twist of his wrist, eyes locked with Steve’s. Light glints off his cross earring. “Mmm.” 

“Do you practice being gross?” 

“You know,” Billy says, settling down on the counter now like he goddamn lives here, “there’s a show goin’ on tonight just outside Bloomington, in this abandoned barn. Some local band. I figure it’s Indiana so it’s gonna blow, but who knows? Could be entertaining.” 

“Greeeat.” 

“Wanna go?” Billy looks up at him through his long, dark lashes. 

Steve’s lost for words. Just opens and closes his mouth, staring down at this unreal person before him, shiny and sharp as the pages of a magazine. This person who gave him a scar on his head and a crack in his tooth.

Steve wants to get away from him. He also wants to eat him. Like when he wakes up from a nightmare and goes looking for monsters. 

“What you say, Stevie-boy? You got anything better to do on a Friday night?”

“He never does,” chimes Robin, who’s suddenly reappeared.

Steve sputters, outraged and outnumbered. Billy’s tonguing ice cream from the bowl of his cone like he’s eating it out. 

Max saves the day, comes up silently beside Billy and punches him in the arm. He straightens with a jerk, almost dropping his cone, and scowls down at her. “Quit bullying Steve,” Max chides. “Sorry, Steve. Also, ew.” She motions at Billy’s outfit. 

For a second Billy almost looks life-size. But he recovers fast. “Fuck you too,” he smiles, flicking Max hard in her freckled forehead. Then he turns back to Steve. 

“I gotta run Maxine home, but I’ll be back to grab you in twenty.” He winks, eats his empty cone in two violent bites, and then leaves. Max shoots Steve a look like “???” as she trails after, rubbing her forehead. Steve just shakes his head, watching them go. 

“What the heck,” he whispers. Turns around to find Robin holding up her whiteboard scorecard, now with a single tally under YOU RULE.  
  
“I’m gonna give you this one,” she declares.

Steve balls up the dirty rag and throws it at her. Gets her right in the face. They didn't vote him team captain for nothing. 

—

He sleepwalks through the rest of the shift. An adult shows up for the three little girls; the teenage couple sneaks off when Steve isn’t looking. He drops a last-minute customer’s triple-decker caramel swirl waffle cone, and then busts himself in the face with the mop while he’s cleaning it up. 

While Robin restocks toppings and cups and cones for tomorrow, Steve picks up scattered trash and “swabs the deck” (per the Scoops Ahoy training manual). As he wipes down the right-hand freezer one last time, all he can see is Billy’s freakishly perfect skin, stuck there just minutes ago.

“Hey, stay out of the breakroom for a sec,” Steve calls, ducking into the back while Robin counts down the register. A task that she and not Steve is authorized to perform, despite being two years younger than him. 

“One of these days I’ll report you to corporate for sexual misconduct!” Robin yells back over the sound of coins clanking.

“Oh, can it.” Steve shucks off the stupid shorts, almost tearing the cheap fly in his haste. “I’m not staying in this goddamn costume any longer than I have to.” 

He shimmies into the pair of stone wash jeans he had on this morning, sheds his uniform shirt and tugs on a colorblock polo, teal with a sherbet-orange collar and ringer sleeves. “All clear,” he announces, stuffing the sailor suit back in his duffel bag. Mood better already. 

Robin steps in on cue, rolling her eyes as she goes to her locker. “God forbid Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington looks less than cool for five minutes.” She slings a mini backpack over one shoulder. 

“Hey, I’ve looked less than cool for six hours. It was time for a change.” 

“I don’t know. Hargrove seems to like the outfit.” Robin’s bike helmet swings from her hand as she closes her locker and turns, smirking.

Steve groans. “That’s because he takes joy in the humiliation of others.” 

“Hmm. That does seem true.”

“So,” Robin needles two minutes later, once she’s switched off the lights and they’ve pulled the steel shutter over the storefront. “You gonna let him whisk you away?” 

Steve makes a pretty graphic gagging sound. “God, never talk. No. Of course not.” 

They join the mass exodus of teen and twenty-something mall employees, stripping off vests and aprons and hats, chatting with one another so their voices merge in a warm hum, punctuated by the clatter of shoes on the shiny pink floors. “You should go,” Robin insists, waving to some overly tall girl she knows who works at the pretzel stand. 

“Why?” 

Robin shrugs. “It might distract you from your existential crisis.” 

“My _what_?” Steve shakes his head, stepping down onto an escalator. “I’m not having a—never mind. Look, that guy—he beat the shit out of me last year.”

Robin hops on two steps behind-slash-above him. “Oh. That was Hargrove,” she says quietly. 

“I’m surprised you didn’t--” 

“Billy Hargrove?” Steve twists around to see Andi Talbot, a fellow graduate, leaning on the handrail, popping her gum over Robin’s head. She works at Claire’s, has no plans for college, and rejected Steve twice this summer. 

“Steve!” Robin points violently forward, giving Steve a chance to trip off the escalator before it eats his toes. 

Andi tags along with Steve and Robin as they pass between the green fronds that erupt from planters in the center of the mall. “I heard back in Cali he killed some kid’s dog and that’s why they had to move.”

“I’m pretty sure Carol made that one up,” says Steve. “Definitely plausible, though.” 

Say what you will about Carol— _she_ never holds back—but the girl’s creative. Steve kinda misses her, if only because her bullshit was entertaining. Tommy’s bullshit too, in its own way. Both of them are leaving for Ohio State in a month. 

Robin says, “I don’t listen to gossip,” like it’s the simplest thing in the world.

“Okay, Gandhi.” Steve rolls his eyes. “Point is, Hargrove’s a psycho. I don’t wanna die tonight.” 

“I’d still let him bone me,” says Andi matter-of-factly, plucking at a permed brown curl. “Though I heard he only does moms.” 

Robin ignores her, head turned resolutely toward Steve. “Yeah, no, probably best stay away, then. Sorry for pressuring you.” 

“Don’t sweat it.” 

They pass through the glass doors, and fresh night air wafts in their faces, tasting like relief and dread. People herd across the parking lot, calling out goodbyes and climbing in their cars. Just as Steve reaches the edge of the sidewalk, a blue Camaro zooms up, cutting him off. 

“Let’s get this show on the road!” Billy shouts over his blasting stereo, arm sprawled over the windowsill, cig smoldering between his fingers.

“Where you goin’, Billy?” Andi steps around Steve to lean up by the Camaro’s side mirror, blowing a big bubble, sucking it back in. 

Billy leers. “Sweetheart, wouldn’t you like to know.” The two of them look like a scene from some greaser movie, only Billy’s missing his leather jacket.

“Maybe.” She strokes a finger over the tawny swell of his bicep. 

“Well, maybe next time I’ll come find ya.” And he honks his horn, making her jump half a foot. She skitters off toward her white Fiero, cursing, flipping him off and yet somehow smiling. “C’mon, pretty boy, we don’t have all night,” Billy calls to Steve. 

Robin lingers beside him, glancing between them while she tightens the strap on her helmet. When Steve just stands there, she says, “Good luck, dingus,” pats him on the shoulder, and walks off toward the bike rack. 

“Why?” Steve says when she’s gone. 

“Why what?” 

“Why are you asking me, out of everyone in Hawkins? Why not Tommy, and/or Carol? Why not Andi?” 

Smoke billows from Billy’s mouth, cigarette lolling on his lip. “Look like you could stand to blow off some steam.” 

The parking lot empties as Steve stands on the sidewalk, staring, while some guy barks about _rich girls_ and _fast cars_ over a guitar riff like the motion of a handsaw. Billy’s purple in the neon light that spills from Starcourt and blocks out the stars. 

Steve’s looking for the words to tell Billy off, something like, _when_ _Hell freezes over_ , but hasn’t Hell done that already? And when he pictures forging past the hood of Billy’s car to where the Beemer sits alone at the back of the lot, of driving home to his empty estate, filling sleepless hours with canned TV voices that get thinner and thinner the longer the night drags on, Steve does feel frozen. But he looks at Billy and feels something else. Something hot and fluid, like bleeding. 

He leans down until their eyes are level. “Sit tight. I gotta get something from my car.” 

“Make it quick, princess,” Billy rattles off, blowing smoke in Steve’s face.

Steve strikes out quick and snatches the cigarette from between Billy’s lips, takes a triumphant drag as he walks away. Mean satisfaction in Billy’s flinch. The feeling grows at the shocked face he makes when Steve lands in his passenger seat with a nail-studded bat.

Which he’s privately nicknamed Needles.

“Insurance,” Steve clarifies, yanking the door shut. He grips the bat’s handle where it rests between his knees, bumping up against the box of tapes on the floor. Its firm weight feels suddenly crucial as the smell of the Camaro—that blend of clean vinyl and stale smoke and spicy cologne—plunges him somewhere desperate. 

“What the _fuck_?” Out of the corner of his eye, Steve sees Billy’s hands convulse on the steering wheel, his body tense up like it always does before he loses it at practice. 

“You thought I was just gonna let you drive me out to the middle of nowhere and murder me? Well, think again, jackass.” Steve kinda giggles, hysterical. 

“We’re already in the middle of nowhere,” Billy mutters. His face is stormy when Steve risks a look, those thick dark brows drawn tight over his eyes. But he seems to measure his breaths just like Steve is doing. Maybe Steve won’t have to bash him. 

“That’s debatable.” 

“And I wasn’t gonna murder you.” 

“Yeah, well, your track record isn’t great.” 

“Why the hell do you even have that thing?”

Steve just hums all mysterious while Billy stares at him, idling still in the mall’s glow, and Steve gets a thrill of something not fear, at that dart of unease in Billy’s blue eyes. Like the shadow of a boy, moving quick so you won’t catch him. Billy grabs at the pack of Camels on the dashboard and taps out a cigarette, lighting it with a pointed glare at the one in Steve’s mouth. 

“At least put it in the back. You're gonna jack up my upholstery.”

“So you can get to it before I do? No way.” 

“You wanna be the one to explain that to a cop?” Billy gestures sharply with the cigarette. 

“Drive like a normal person and it won’t be an issue! You wanna get going or what?” 

Billy huffs and puffs, but he puts the car in drive, circling the parking lot and pulling out onto the road. It’s always creepy leaving the mall at night, that brand-new shine giving way to the rustling darkness of Hawkins’ periphery. Not so quiet tonight, though, with Billy’s music squealing through the speakers, something rough and raw that reminds Steve vaguely of whatever Jonathan Byers played in his car the time Steve drank too much table wine at Upside-Down Family Dinner and had to be driven home. 

Starcourt’s close to the highway, so it’s not long before Billy’s stopping at the shitty gas station on the edge of town, the one Steve only goes to because it stays open late. The Quick Mart is just a little white box with a dark gable roof, plexiglass windows exposing the shop on two of four sides. Two pumps huddle under a white awning with a blue stripe licking around the perimeter. The place has always given Steve a shivery feeling, with how it seems to jump out of the woods when you turn the corner, no other buildings in either direction for at least half a mile—nothing in sight at all but trees and sky and the sign for the turnoff onto 69. 

Billy pulls into the pump on the left. “You got any cash to kick in?” he says as he turns off the car.

“Are you for real?” 

Billy makes a cheeky little sound between his teeth. “Worth a shot.” Then he leans over and pinches the collar of Steve’s polo. “You going to a punk show in this?” He laughs low, “Peaches and Cream.” 

Steve smacks his hand away. “It’s not like I knew when I left the house. And you didn’t say it was punk.” A fresh wave of trepidation crashes over him, images running through his head of deranged-looking people with towering mohawks and safety pins stuck through their faces, of heroin, swastikas, suicide. He flicks his cigarette butt out the window, hugs himself. 

“I got you, pretty boy.” 

Billy twists around and rummages in the backseat, his scrap of a shirt riding up to show his ribs. Steve turns a little to see what he’s looking for, and it’s like the wind’s been knocked out of him—he’s waking up crammed back there between Mike and Dustin, swollen with pain and dawning terror as Billy’s thirteen-year-old sister drives them to their deaths. Steve makes a gagging sound—real this time—and scrabbles at the door handle, spills out of the car, sucking in the smell of gasoline. He staggers over a few feet and sits down on the curb, crushes his face into his knees, forcing denim-scented air in and out of his lungs. 

Something soft smacks him in the head. 

He jerks upright, looking down at the small bundle that unfurls in his lap. Slowly he snags the fabric between thumb and forefinger, shaking it out to reveal a black t-shirt, worn-soft with holes forming around the collar and armpits. It smells like sunscreen and sweat. 

Billy’s standing by the open driver’s door, watching him carefully. His boots are untied. 

“I’m not wearing your dirty goddamn laundry.” Steve wads the shirt up and throws it back at Billy, but it falls short, landing on the oil-stained pavement. Billy bends down and picks it up. Leans in to pull something else from the backseat, then saunters over, pops down on the curb next to Steve.

“Yeah, well, I’m not getting seen at a show with a square.” He deposits a heap of fabric in Steve’s lap, red flannel covering the t-shirt. 

“You invited me,” Steve chokes out, staring at a scab on Billy’s knee, at the light brown hair on his legs. 

“Yup, and I can uninvite you just as easily.” As Billy stands he tousles Steve’s hair for just the second it takes Steve to duck. His palm is rough and warm. “If you’re not changed when I get back, I’m leaving you here.” And he swaggers off into the gas station, that same hand wiggling the wallet out of his taut back pocket.

Steve thinks that would probably be better for everyone. It’s a long, dark, lonely walk back to the mall, but it’s walkable, and Steve’s got his bat. Whereas to get to Bloomington will take an hour and a half even if Billy speeds like hell—and he will, and that’s a whole other issue. The idea of being trapped in a car with him for that long legitimately boggles Steve’s mind. 

He swivels around on the still-warm pavement to watch Billy through the plexiglass, watch him prop his hip on the counter, pluck a Bic from the display and play with the flame, doing his usual flirty act as he chats with the cashier who’s just out of view. Steve wonders if they’re a chick or a dude. ‘Cause when Robin gave him a point for scoring a “date” with Billy, it didn’t sound that far off from the truth. 

Steve’s… heard things. About Billy. Just like everyone and their grandmother’s dog. But specifically, there were things some of the girls would say: that Billy would take them to movies, and make out with them in the dark, and put his hand down their pants—but he wouldn’t let them touch _him_. Jessica B said she grabbed his package once while his fingers were in her and he wasn’t even hard. And Jessica B’s got double D’s and lips like strawberry marshmallows. 

It could, of course, be bullshit. Plenty of other girls insisted they'd gone all the way with him, and it was _like, sooo amazing_. But. Steve’s not a total idiot. He knows there’s something off about the way Billy hounded him on the court, in the showers. How Billy hassles him, now, at work. And how badly he wants Steve to wear his clothes. 

It’s not that that Steve wants anything—like that—from Billy Hargrove, of all people. But he’s been striking out all summer and it’s good to be want _ed—_ and by someone so _popular_ , _infamous_. _Hot._ Steve knows it’s stupid and sad, what he’s willing to risk to feel that way, but knowing it doesn’t make him less lonely. 

He tangles his hands in the bundle of clothes in his lap, thinking, what the hell. He really will stick out like a sore thumb in this pastel monstrosity. Before he can think better of it, he strips his polo off and shrugs on the t-shirt; shudders, overwhelmed by the soft and the smell, the touch-by-proxy. He pulls on the flannel and stands, rolling up the sleeves, going around to peer at himself in the Camaro’s back window. He’s kinda channeling Joyce Byers here. Is that was Billy was going for? 

When Billy emerges from the shop a minute later with a grocery bag dangling from one hand, Steve’s standing up against the Camaro’s trunk, smoking one of his own Marlboros. Billy’s gaze slides over him, and this almost sweet smile touches one side of his mouth, before morphing into a familiar smirk. 

“Not bad,” he muses.

“I look like a mom on cleaning day.” 

“Mm, something’s missing, though.” Billy taps his chin in thought. Then he rears his head back in a little nod, jerks his arm so the plastic bag swings from his elbow, and unfastens something from his wrist. “Hold out your hand.” 

Steve eyes him warily, but in the end he does as he’s told. In for a penny, in for a pound, or whatever. He offers his left wrist, the one without his Casio watch, and Billy’s fingertips scrape the soft skin as he secures a leather bracelet around it. Soon he’s pulling back, as a big rusty truck rolls up to the other pump. He nods some more, looking almost flushed; tosses, “Now you look halfway cool,” over his shoulder as he goes around to the driver’s side of the Camaro and pops the door to the gas tank. 

Steve flips him off, but he doesn’t see. The bracelet is just a couple strips of suede braided together, forming a loop at one end, with a tiny black button messily stitched to the other. It looks like Billy made it himself, or someone made it for him. A girl, maybe. But probably not. 

—

Wind whips Steve’s hair into a hopeless snarl as they race down the highway. Harsh noise Steve won’t call music tears through the stereo into the night, so loud he feels it in his eyeballs. Leave it to Billy to use sound as a form of assault. 

Steve reaches over and turns the volume down. “What is this?” he shouts. 

Billy looks pissed that Steve dared touch anything in his precious car, but he answers, “Germs.” 

“Germs… like flu germs?” The guy on the tape does kinda sound like he’s throwing up.

Billy laughs once like he can’t help it. 

“Is it supposed to sound terrible?” 

“Yeah, kinda.” Billy flashes a grin, then cranks the music right back up.

Another song comes on, more chaotic and faster than the previous, with high-pitched, squealing, babbling vocals. Steve turns down the volume again. “What’s this?” he asks, just to be obnoxious.

“Bad Brains.” Billy takes a drag from his cigarette. Lets the volume stay where Steve left it. “So how ‘bout you, Stevie, what you got in the tape deck? Lemme guess. Springsteen. Starship. Fuckin’, Styx.” 

Yes, yes, and yes. Steve shrugs. “I just listen to whatever’s on the radio.”

“Yech. You’re killing me here.” 

“What’s wrong with that?” Steve snaps back, crossing his arms. “Not everybody has to be, like, _into_ music.” 

“Sure, but everyone should be into something.” Billy shoots him a too-knowing look. 

“Screw you. _You’re_ into terrorizing children. So.” 

“So, I’m wrong when I say your life is incredibly sad?” 

“Shut up,” Steve mutters, as a new song comes on. This one’s more recognizable _as_ a song, and Steve hears a woman’s voice for the first time since he got in the car. That gets him thinking about the nature of the musical selection. “Wait. Did you make a mixtape just for this trip?” 

Billy goes very still and silent. Steve grins, seizing the advantage. 

“You seem awfully excited to see a show that will, and I quote, ‘probably blow.’ How’s that for sad?” 

Billy scowls at the road. “Yeah, well, a man gets desperate after eight months in the shithole you call home.”

The man on the tape goes, _She had to leave,_ and the woman yelps, _Los Angeles!_

“Hawkins isn't that bad,” Steve half-heartedly protests.

“Says you. You don't even know what you're missing, living in an actual city.”

“Hey, I’ve been to cities.”

Billy laughs. “Yeah, where?”

“New York. Chicago. Philly.”

“You do or see anything that isn't listed in a brochure?” 

“I mean. My grandma lives in Chicago. I’ve done stuff.” 

“See, in San Diego there’s always live music somewhere. Just gotta know where to look. Bomb parties, too. Drag racing. Shit to _do_.” 

“So that’s where you’re from, San Diego.” 

Street light flashes over Billy’s face. “Most beautiful place in the world.”

Steve thinks about what Billy might have been like in California. Summer Billy, year-round. He pictures him surfing, sneaking beer under a glittering boardwalk, head-banging half-naked around a bonfire. 

“You gonna go back?” Steve says after a while.

Billy slams the heel of his hand against the steering wheel in time with a frontman’s maniacal laughter. “You bet your ass. I’m saving my pennies--minute that diploma’s in my hand, I’m out.” He pauses, then shoots Steve a sly look. “Maybe I’ll go to LA, see if I could make it as an actor.” 

Figures. Billy would probably be better at that than Steve wants to admit. Got the looks for it, too, obviously. 

“You think I could?” Billy presses. 

“What, make it as an actor?”

“Yeah.” 

Steve grimaces, pulling on his own cigarette. “Yeah, probably,” he exhales. “Until you beat a director’s face in or something.” 

“Ha,” Billy says in a flat tone. 

“Don’t you have something you want to say to me?” Steve challenges, on impulse. It gets real dark as they pass under a bridge.

After a long pause, Billy responds on a smoky exhale. “I got plenty of somethings, princess, just nothing you want to hear.” The car accelerates. 

“You’re unbelievable,” Steve utters, shaking his head, looking out at the overgrown, shrouding thicket that blurs by.

“So I’m told.” 

Steve runs the fingers of his free hand over Needles’ smooth handle. Doesn’t know what he expected. It’s been two-thirds of a year without an apology. But that’s some nerve, to drag a person along on an out-of-town excursion and not even acknowledge the time you put them in the hospital. 

“Well, good riddance,” Steve says, finally, half-joking. “You’re a menace to our community.”

BIlly barks a laugh, shaking his head. “Please. Your ‘community’ is a menace to itself.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Just that you people are some of the most repressed fuckers I’ve ever met. I swear half the bitches in Hawkins are sleeping around on their husbands, or trying to.” 

“You’d know a lot about that, I guess,” Steve snorts. Thinks of the time he watched Billy blatantly come on to their school guidance counselor. 

Billy gives Steve a mean smile. “Well, maybe not like you do, Stevie.” 

At first Steve doesn't get what he means. Then: 

“It wasn’t like that,” he grits out. 

“Seriously, man, what did you see in that uppity slut?” 

Steve grips his bat. “You better shut the hell up about Nancy.” 

Billy glances over at him, foot bearing down on the gas. “Or what? You’re gonna take a swing at the driver of the moving vehicle you’re sitting in.” 

“Just stop talking.” 

“It’s time to move on, amigo. Never seen a guy this messed up over some chick. It’s actually a little pathetic.” 

“I’m not messed up over her. Why don’t you watch the fucking road?” 

“No? You’re certainly messed up over something.” Billy’s eyes seem to bore into him.

“And you’re not?” Steve twists around to face him, laughing. “Jesus. Did your mom never hug you or something? ‘Cause you’re like a walking, schmoozing, raging cry for attention.” 

SIlence descends. Even the punk music grows temporarily hushed. Then abruptly the Camaro veers off the road, throwing Steve so hard sideways he almost gets whiplash. The car comes to a bumping halt on the shoulder and Steve hears himself pant over the now-panicked pulse of the song. 

“Say something else about my mother,” says Billy, voice toneless. 

Steve clings to Needles. “We’re agreed, then,” he chokes out, willing his voice to stop shaking. “You don’t talk about Nancy, I don’t talk about anyone you care about.” 

“See that you don’t.” And Billy slowly pulls back onto the road. 

If the atmosphere in the car was tense before, it’s unbearable now. Billy stares straight ahead and floors it, pushing 100 easy. Then even faster. 

“Jesus, slow down,” Steve murmurs. Stares at the digital read on the stereo: it’s only been thirty minutes since they left Hawkins.

“What was that?” Billy retorts in that same dead tone, right foot crushing relentlessly down. 

Steve shuts up. Mentally, he records a survival tip for the future, provided he lives through the night: don’t bring up a guy’s mother if you don’t even know she’s alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [billy's seduction mix](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6j1Ku4AIunY6EUfj4e7Srg?si=zKbtfFsNTmKWgjMuG09dWg)  
> 
> 
> This is the first of a two-part chapter. I hope to have part 2 out before the end of the month/year/decade. After that we'll get into Post-S3. 
> 
> This chapter is unbeta'd, but I'd love to find someone to work with on future updates. I'm more than happy to return the favor (I like editing more than writing). Comment or email me at shyweather@gmail.com if you're interested!! (Or just comment in general ;))


	2. PUNK SHOW [2/2]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is so much later than I said it'd be. I'm really slow, and then sometimes I randomly lose my ability to write for weeks at a time. I could definitely keep tweaking this but I wanna post it and move on. Oh, and the rating went up. Hope you enjoy!!

No one says anything for a long time. The wind blasting into the car is so stiff Steve’s eyes sting. Dark clumps of trees streak by the window, skinny trunks caught in the headlights’ glare. The moon slithers behind a cloud. 

For the span of about a second Steve considers apologizing for what he said about Billy’s mom. But screw that, because first of all, this guy goes for the throat inevery interaction, shouldn’t poke at people’s tender spots if he can’t take it himself. Second of all, _he_ won’t apologize for beating Steve unconscious. And third of all, he’s being a total disproportionate raging hardon. Steve doesn’t deserve this. 

Blue and red lights flash in the rearview, and Billy curses, taking his foot off the gas. They’re still going fast as shit. Steve kinda hopes the cop pulls them over—even if he gets in trouble, he’d pick that over staying in this death trap with Billy. But the cop car whizzes by them, siren blaring. 

After that, Billy drives the limit. Sort of. The tape ends, and the sound of the wind is gentle on Steve’s nerves. Billy stabs at the rewind button.

“Pick something,” he says, motioning toward the box of tapes at Steve’s feet.

“...Me?” 

“Who else, numbnuts?” 

Steve sighs, stubbing his cigarette out in the ashtray and hunching down. He gets his fingers under the worn edges of the box and hauls it onto his lap. He has to hold up each tape and squint to see the labels. 

“I don’t know what any of this is.” 

“Just pick something!” 

“Okay, okay, Jesus.” Tapes clack together as Steve scrabbles around in the box, looking for something he recognizes. Finally he spots the words LED ZEPPELIN through a crack in the case and figures that’s a safe choice. It’s the one with the old man with the bundle of sticks on his back. He switches out Billy’s mix—simply labeled _6/28/85_ in long decisive strokes of black marker—for the Zeppelin tape. After all that racket, Plant’s voice rolls real smooth over the ears, uncomfortably sexy. 

A couple songs in, Billy tilts his hip up in the driver’s seat so he can dig around in his right pocket. He shoves a crumpled piece of paper into Steve’s shoulder, commanding, “Tell me where to get off.” 

Steve blinks down at the RadioShack receipt in his hand.

“Uh, what?” 

“Directions, dumbass.” 

Steve turns the receipt over. “Oh.” 

He has to hold it an inch from his face to make out the numbered list of directions. Whoever wrote them has the tiniest handwriting Steve’s ever seen. 

“Uhhh, I can’t read this.” He turns to Billy. “Who even wrote this, a friggin’, Who from Whoville?”

Billy heaves a huge sigh and flicks on the interior light. He looks kinda off in the sudden glare, like a swimsuit model caught at a bad angle. 

“That’s better,” Steve says, looking back down at the paper. “Okay, you’re gonna take Exit 200 onto 465.” 

“What’s the one we just passed?” 

“Um, 209, I think.” Steve’s never been to Bloomington, but he’s driven to Indianapolis enough times to know what’s up. 

“We fucking missed it??” 

“No, man, it goes the other way.” Steve can’t help sneering. “Dumbass.” 

Billy flips him the bird, but he doesn’t freak out, more’s the surprise, just sucks down his cigarette and drives at a normal-ish speed. 

Steve keeps directing him as they approach Monroe County. He’s a little calmer with a task, like he’s an actual participant in what’s happening to him. Their mysterious guide seems to know his or her way around central Indiana, and they don’t get lost—at least, not until the final turn onto a narrow, winding gravel road, hardly wider than the car itself. The last of the directions just says _follow old mill rd ~10 mi, barn on your left_. 

They crawl on for what feels like too long, both of them peering out at the cornfields that stretch like gaps between the long, silent rows of the trees, scrutinizing each little house and outbuilding that appears to the left of the road. 

“Damn it,” Billy blows out. “Where the hell is it?” He’s getting real frustrated, almost like he isn’t used to navigating lightless backroads. 

“Tough time, city boy?” Steve teases, snorting at the unintentional spin on Billy’s favorite epithet. 

“I’m gonna need you to shut up, Harrington.” 

“It’s gotta be coming up soon.” 

“You sure it’s Old Mill Road?” Billy accuses.

“Says it right here.” 

“If that nerd told me wrong...” Billy shakes his head, fists tightening on the wheel. “I’m gonna ruin his life.” 

“What nerd?”

“The nerd from RadioShack,” Billy says, with an implied _duh_ , like it’s the president they’re talking about. 

By this point Steve’s smoked through half a pack of cigarettes, and he’s started to feel a little queasy, as well as hungry, with a truly colossal tension headache building in his skull, from all the goddamn tension. He’s thinking if they don’t find this place soon he’s just gonna tuck and roll off into the woods and hope something in there will eat him. Then he hears it. 

“Hey! You hear that?” He grabs at Billy’s shoulder, then quickly lets go. 

There’s a strange pause where Billy just looks at him. Then he perks up; the sound of bad music grows steadily louder. After another minute or two, the trees clear on the left side of the road, and Steve sees _light_ , shining from the hazy structure standing in the center of the field. 

“Oh, yes, fucking finally,” Billy breathes. 

Billy turns the car, rolling down through the grass. The barn gleams blood-red in the light that pours from the gooseneck lantern hung above the big double doors, seeming to vibrate with the noise coming from inside. People stand around smoking and talking in clumps, a few dozen cars parked haphazardly around the field. 

Billy randomly parks, a good fifty yards from the barn’s entrance. He checks himself over in the rearview mirror, fluffing up his stupid hair. Steve’s tempted to do the same, but he’s sure his is irredeemably wind-fucked and he’ll just feel bad if he looks. Then Billy’s pushing into Steve’s space so he can get at the glove compartment, ignoring Steve’s squawk of protest and elbowing him in the gut. After three painful seconds, he pulls back with a steel flask in his hand, unscrewing the cap to take a long swig.

“Here,” he says, thrusting it at Steve.

Steve sniffs at it, then shrugs and takes a sip. It’s cheap, nasty whiskey. Of course. 

“How are you a real person,” Steve mutters to himself. 

“‘Scuse me?” 

“Never mind.” Steve downs a lot more liquor before passing the flask back.

“You ready for this, princess?” Billy opens his door, swings one leg out of the car. 

“Guess so,” says Steve. He does not mention that he’s only ever been to a huge, stadium Bruce Springsteen concert back in the summer of ‘81. Tommy’s mom drove them down to Cincinnati and bought them McDonald’s on the way and Steve has no frame of reference for whatever’s happening in that barn. 

The night has grown cool, and the air is pierced by bashing cymbals and grinding guitars. Steve shivers a little. Billy seems immune as he strides across the lawn, full swagger in effect. Steve trudges after him and tries not to get stuck in the mud. He can see Billy sizing people up as he passes them, needing as always to be the biggest damn cock in the coop. 

Steve looks, too. He sees one blue-tipped mohawk, a handful of safety pins, but no swastikas, thank God. Mostly just a lot of vaguely unwashed young men in all different types of clothing, ranging from casual to creepy. There are a few girls, too. There’s one with short jagged hair falling in her black-rimmed eyes, with thick thighs and big boots poised in a firm stance, who catches Steve’s eye.

One of the barn’s double doors is closed, while the other leans open, a big blank-faced guy posted in the doorway. “Buck to get in,” he tells them, but doesn’t ask for ID. Billy pulls a crumpled bill out of his wallet and Steve hurries to do the same. The guy stamps their hands, leaving each with the blurred red outline of a smiley face. Steve snorts at Billy’s disgruntled expression as they troop through the doorway. 

Inside it’s loud and crowded and dark. The only light comes from the big bare bulbs hung over the stage on the opposite end of the building, tangled webs of Christmas lights strung from rusted old hooks all along the perimeter. A bedsheet hangs behind the stage, dripping with the words: THE NUCLEAR FAMILY. The band thrashes away, rebounding off each other, while a raucous crowd pushes against the stage; Steve can see people shoving and grabbing each other like they want to get hurt.

The singer yowls about killing his mom and dad, egged on in the high sweet tones of his girl bandmate. The air’s thick with cigarette smoke but underneath there’s a musty smell, a note of something decaying. Steve looks up, trying to breathe, sees dust motes disappearing through the gaps between the beams. 

A hand clenches on his arm and he’s swinging, fist connecting with the meat and bone of a cheek. And Billy Hargrove is stumbling back, clutching his face, knocking people to the side. They curse over the clamor of the music, pushing back at the both of them, and in the stark light from the stage, Billy’s face is a Halloween mask. Steve thinks, _well, this is it_ , he’s getting pummeled to death in this crowd of freaks.

“Sorry, shit, I’m sorry,” Steve babbles as Billy seizes his arms. He squeezes his eyes shut, bracing for the hit, Billy’s fingers like hot pincers in his flesh.

Nothing happens. Steve opens his eyes. Billy’s right up in his face, staring, and his eyes are wild, his lashes wet. He frowns down, breathing hard, still holding onto Steve. 

Then Billy’s hands loosen, one sliding down Steve’s arm to grasp his wrist. The other falls away, coming back to press cold metal into Steve’s hand. “Drink,” Billy growls, and lets go of him.

Steve knocks the flask against his teeth, dribbling, hand shaking. “Sorry,” he manages. 

“Don’t be a pussy,” Billy says. “C’mon.” But this time, his hand comes slow, wrapping around Steve’s wrist right over the leather bracelet, pulling him firmly forward. 

Billy forces their way through the crowd, being a real ass about it, elbowing people out of the way and getting shoved in return. Steve tries to shield his head. Billy’s grip on his forearm is unbreakable, the only point of focus in a sea of noise and movement. 

The parent-killing song ends just as they reach the front of the crowd, right up on the stage, a structure slapped together from barely-stripped timbers. People in the crowd hoot and holler, bang on stuff, while the band glugs beer and shuffles around. Steve takes another fortifying swig from the flask. Now all he can smell is spilled beer and pot smoke and, most of all, sweat. It pours off the frontman, a guy around Steve’s age with a densely freckled face and arms, tight coils of red hair, rectangular glasses that don’t match the prison tattoo on his arm. He leans into the mic with a weird half-grin and says, “Gee, thanks.” People laugh like he said something funny. 

“Get a load of this nerd,” Billy scoffs beside Steve. 

Then the drummer stomps his heel three times and they all start whaling on their instruments again, and the audience starts whaling on each other. Everyone’s jumping, bodies crashing into Steve’s, and he feels that rising tide of panic, but Billy slings an arm over his shoulders, pulls and pushes him so he has no choice but to move too or be bowled over. Vibrations roll up through the ground, make his body buzz, and soon he’s throwing Billy off him, bashing back into him, trying to knock him off balance, all while staring up at the people onstage. 

The ginger frontman yells that he won’t get a job, and Steve’s close enough to see the tendon stand out in his neck, his big hands slam over his banged-up guitar. The girl bassist flails around in a green floral dress, screaming that there’s no future, lips violently red. And Steve’s like, _hell yeah, I’ll quit my job too! Yeah, fuck my future!_ And when Ginger Punk hops down into the crowd, Steve reaches out and touches his tricep. 

Some time later Billy starts whooping beside him and Steve realizes the current song’s chorus goes “I HATE THE MIDWEST.” He looks over and Billy’s laughing like a kid, sweat streaming off him, all mixed with Steve’s, and Steve thinks that maybe if Billy had asked him to a show last November, that time at the Byers’ never would have happened. That maybe they could have been friends.

Steve swerves over and shouts in Billy’s ear. “They’re pretty good!” 

Billy laughs harder, smacks his side into Steve’s extra hard as he sticks his nose in the hair behind Steve’s ear. “They suck!” 

—

“I gotta piss,” Billy says later, arm back around Steve’s shoulders to pull him in. At some point Billy disappeared and then reappeared with a lit joint, and now they’re both high, not to mention Steve kind of polished off that flask. 

“Oh shit, me too,” he says to no one, since Billy’s already forcing his way toward the exit, laughing and jeering when people shove back at him. Steve struggles after, not wanting to be separated, not willing to think about why. They pass the horse stall where somebody’s hawking beer from a few grimy kegs, the table laden with cassettes and LPs and hand-painted t-shirts and little photocopied booklets, and Steve thinks, _I wanna t-shirt_.

The cool air outside grazes his skin and he sighs in pleasure. His body’s all liquid, like whatever it was inside him called Steve is streaming out with the sweat. A few people hang around talking and smoking, one couple getting handsy in the back of a truck, but no one pays Billy or Steve any mind. Billy starts off toward the tree line, and Steve trails a couple feet behind him. Billy’s talking trash about the “scene” out here, though he’s flushed and grinning and obviously having fun, and he’s bragging about some show he went to in LA where an actual riot broke out and he got pushed down onto broken glass and had to get 40 stitches. Steve’s half-listening, watching fireflies flicker in the field. “Yeah, yeah, you’re hardcore.”

The mostly-full moon hangs over the treetops, cold and misty. Steve stops to stare up, struck by the loneliness of it. He cups his hands on either side of his mouth and howls. _Are you there? I’m here._

“The hell you doing?” Billy laughs, pausing and turning back to look at Steve. 

“I just wanna run in a pack,” says Steve. 

“Nobody told me you get like this when you drink,” Billy complains, shaking his head. “Freakin’ lunatic.” 

“Look who’s talking.” Steve steps up to him, puts his hand on top of Billy’s head and wobbles it around. His hair’s sweaty, crunchy with mousse. “Psycho killer.” Steve pauses, “Something French. Fa-fa-fa-fa, fa-fa-fa—” 

“Dear God.” Billy grabs Steve’s wrist and holds it away from himself. “How were you ever cool.” 

Steve pulls their joined hands toward his own face and licks the back of Billy’s hand. Billy actually squawks. “How old are you?” he demands, letting go of Steve, shaking his hand around and then wiping it on his shorts. 

“Nineteen in August,” Steve says. Then he cracks up. “God, that face.”

“What face?” Billy’s hilarious baffled expression becomes a menacing scowl, but it just makes Steve laugh harder. 

“I like you better when you’re surprised,” he admits. Billy stills.

“Yeah? You gonna surprise me?”

“Maybe,” says Steve, heart picking up. A bell dings in his mind, what you might call his Impending Dumbass Alarm, which goes off all the time yet never stops him from doing the dumb thing. 

After a second, Billy says, “Like to see you try,” voice thrumming with something Steve wants to know and doesn’t. Billy sets off again, crossing the field, disappears behind a ramshackle old shed perched on the edge of the woods. He’s already pissing into the trees when Steve approaches him. Steve stands a safe distance away and gets his dick out, staring straight ahead. 

The woods beyond crackle with night-life. The two of them are at enough of a distance now from the barn and the band that Steve can hear the droning of cicadas, the hooting of owls, the rustling of nocturnal creatures. This far from Hawkins, are these just regular woods? Or are shadows lurking everywhere, anywhere artificial lights don’t reach? 

Steve’s still peeing. He did drink all that whiskey. 

“Damn, Stevie,” says Billy, turning his head toward Steve as he tucks himself away. “Like a racehorse.” There’s a sly note in his voice that flicks over the small of Steve’s back. 

“No looking,” Steve says. “That’s like the first rule.” Billy turns away with a kind of scoff, but Steve doesn’t hear him leave. The air is tense and Steve thinks, _he wants me._ He shakes himself off and zips himself up. 

“You like doin’ this ‘cause you get to touch other dudes?” He turns to face Billy, making a loose gesture to encompass the barn, the show, all of it. 

Billy goes rod-straight, face obscured in the shed’s shadow. “What did you say?” 

“I said, do you wanna touch other dudes.” 

Fists clenched, Billy takes a step forward. “I will fuck you up.” 

“Think you’d rather fuck me,” Steve says, ‘cause he’s crazy, stepping up to meet him. “Or are those the same for you?” 

Billy’s angry, nostrils flared and brows drawn tight, but Steve can hear his quick, panicked breaths, can feel his body sway fractionally forward, as if drawn against his will. _You’re so obvious_ , Steve wants to say. _How’d you get this far being this obvious?_

 _Or,_ with a hot rush, _is it just me?_

He shoves forward with all his strength, pushing until Billy’s back hits the side of the shed, and kisses him. Swallows the strangled gasp Billy makes in the back of his throat. Presses in further when he stays where Steve put him and doesn’t lash out.

When Billy kisses back, it’s desperate and painful, all teeth. He clutches Steve’s back, fingers twisting in fabric and flesh. Steve’s hands race over Billy’s arms, shoulders, chest, stroking his satiny skin, squeezing and clawing. Hungry like the motherfucking wolf. 

He tears his mouth away to suck on Billy’s throat, tasting salt and cologne. Billy gasps again, hands moving to fist in Steve’s hair, and Steve bites down till something crunches. Billy pulls him off, flips them around so Steve’s back is against the corrugated tin siding of the shed, and paws at Steve’s fly, snorting like a bull. Before Steve can even process this his dick is out and throbbing in Billy’s sweat-slick hand, those rings caressing him. Jutting nails scratch Steve’s back as he writhes. 

It’s like he’s watching someone else knot their hand in Billy’s hair, push down on his head. But Steve’s doing it, all right. He’s watched Billy eat so much goddamn ice cream this summer that he feels like he’s been promised. And maybe he feels owed, too. Billy looks him in the eye and Steve thinks he’s done it now, Billy’s gonna rip out his guts and wear ‘em like a lei, but then Billy makes this sound, this gutted little groan, and he sinks to his knees just like that. Stares up at Steve, black-eyed in the dark, looking half-human like some creature from Dustin’s dragon game.

Steve breathes in sharp but holds his gaze. Cards his hand mockingly through Billy’s hair. 

“There he is,” Billy smirks. He tugs on Steve once and then swallows him down. 

The BJ’s messy, rough and mean, not like anything Steve’s ever done with a girl or (a boy) or even in his own imagination. He hisses at the sting of Billy’s teeth, yanks on Billy’s hair; Billy moans around his dick and doesn’t stop him when he thrusts into his mouth, just holds on and takes it. Steve can see Billy’s arm working frantically down below even as he chokes and gags, his other hand clawed around Steve’s thigh, stabbing him with the spikes on his wristband. Even with the pain, it’s over in under two minutes. 

Steve’s chest heaves. He can’t feel any of his limbs. Billy’s on his knees in the dirt, hacking.

“Jesus, sorry,” Steve says, suddenly horrified.

Billy surges to his feet, wobbling a little. Grabs onto Steve’s sleeve—his own sleeve—and wipes the mess off his face. “Shut up,” he rasps, voice all shredded, pulling Steve into a harsh kiss. His mouth tastes disgusting. Steve reaches for Billy’s crotch but—

“Did—” he breaks the kiss. “You already—” 

“What’d I just say?” Billy covers Steve’s mouth, leans down and sucks hard at his neck right below the earlobe. Steve gasps into his palm as Billy cups Steve’s softening junk, lips moving up the shell of his ear, whispering: “Tell anyone and I’ll rip your dick off.” And he gives Steve a squeeze before striding back off toward the barn. 

—

A second band plays. Their stuff is weird but it’s poppier, and they have nice keyboard sounds, and Steve gets to bust out his prom king dance moves. Billy pushes him down and Steve can’t even blame him. Somehow he ends up with a beer. 

Then before he knows it the show’s over and he’s stumbling through the grass to the Camaro. Billy’s ragging on him for being drunk and dumb but he’s still smiling and he’s got dimples when he smiles like a fat fucking baby angel. And then when Steve lands in the seat Billy gives him a bottle of water and half of a stale gas station sandwich and Steve passes out with chicken salad on his chin, watching the power lines arc against the sky. 

—

He wakes up to the glare of a flashlight bouncing off the window he’s slumped against, and to a new, gruff voice, saying, “You sure? ‘Cause you were weaving there a little.” 

“I told you I’m sober,” Billy’s saying. “‘M just tired.” It’s almost sulky, and with his still-hoarse voice, the effect is a bit pathetic. 

Steve turns his head, squinting in the light. After a second he makes out Chief Hopper’s fed-up face poking through the window on the driver’s side, looking down at Billy over his bushy mustache. Guess they made it back to Roane County. Hopper spots Steve and his whole demeanor changes. “Steve Harrington?” 

“Hey, Hop,” says Steve, rubbing his eye. “He’s telling the truth. I basically drank the whole flask by myself.” 

This doesn’t seem to reassure Hopper at all. “You okay, kid? What’s going on here?” He turns a freshly suspicious eye on Billy, who’s glaring down at the steering wheel. Sometime while Steve was passed out he pulled on a sweatshirt. His hair is a bird nest, and he’s got a huge mark on his neck where Steve bit him. It’s so, so stupid, but Steve kind of wants to do something, like lay his hand over Billy’s where it’s clenched so hard on the wheel.

He’s definitely still a li’l drunk. 

“I’m fine,” says Steve. “We were just hanging out.”

“I didn’t kidnap your golden boy,” Billy bitches.

The beam of Hopper’s flashlight moves down to the bat still propped between Steve’s knees. Hopper gives Steve a meaningful look, like he’ll have more questions once they’re out of civilian earshot. “Alright, license and registration,” he says finally, lowering the flashlight. 

“What?” says Billy.

“You were going eighty-five in a sixty-five, genius. I gotta write you a ticket. You used up your freebie, like, three freebies ago. License and registration, now.” 

“Yes sir,” Billy mutters, looking murderous. Steve just marvels at the notion that Hop would let a person like Billy off the hook not once, not twice, but three times. Billy pulls out his driver’s license and shoves it at Hopper, then elbows Steve’s gut again while he’s rooting in the glove compartment for his registration card. The smell of him is overpowering, a musty outdoor scent mixed with sweat and tobacco and also _both of their jizz_. 

Steve looks out the window and tries not to be here quite so much. 

“Huh. Happy birthday, kid,” Hop says. “You’re responsible for yourself now, huh?” 

“ _Yes sir,”_ Billy grits out, voice thick with barely restrained rage. Steve turns back to look at him, startled by the ferocity of it. 

Hopper’s eyebrows lift, and then his face does something weird, just on the one side. “Tell you what. Eleven months till you graduate, right? You get through the next eleven months without making me arrest you, and I’ll buy you a beer before you hit the road.” 

“No thanks,” sneers Billy, not meeting Hop’s eyes.

“Okay,” Hopper sighs. He pats the top of the car once, staring off at the road ahead. “Stay here for a minute.” 

Hopper comes back with Billy’s ticket and sends them on their way, telling them both to get home safe. Billy eases back onto the road with exaggerated care. 

“It’s your birthday?” Steve bursts out. Billy ignores him. “Is it your eighteenth fucking birthday?” 

“Not anymore,” Billy says sarcastically, gesturing at the sky beyond the windshield, tinged with the first light of the day. 

“Why would you spend your birthday with me?” Steve demands, still foggy and suddenly a little freaked. “Why didn’t you have a party or something?” 

“Congrats, Harrington, you’re the best available company in Buttfuck, Indiana. Trust me, it’s not a compliment.” 

Steve has no idea what to say. They sit in silence for the last few minutes before they reach Starcourt. 

Billy slides in next to the Beemer, and when Steve doesn’t immediately get out, he leans over Steve and opens the passenger door himself, making Steve smell him again. “Later, Harrington,” he says as he slides back into his own seat. 

“Oookay.” Steve grabs his bat and his balled-up polo and climbs out of the car. 

“And give me my clothes back.” 

Steve scoffs. “You were the one who wanted me in them so bad.” But he leans Needles against the Beemer and strips off Billy’s flannel and t-shirt, wadding them up together and throwing them back at Billy as hard as he can in his groggy state. 

Billy scoots back across the passenger seat, flips Steve off, shuts the door, and zooms away, all in under thirty seconds. 

“What an asshole,” Steve says out loud, kind of amazed, standing shirtless in the Starcourt parking lot while the sun comes up. 

Eventually he finds the will to wriggle into his shirt and pat at his pockets for his keys. He finds his keys; what he doesn’t find is his wallet. He doesn’t remember the last time he had it out—was it at the show, or before? Did he even have it with him when they left town? He searches the Beemer top to bottom, looks for it in his duffel bag and under the seats, but it’s nowhere to be found. 

“Fuck,” he groans, staring at petrified french fries under the driver’s seat, ass sticking out through the back left door. 

He drives home slowly and carefully, and when he gets there, he drinks two glasses of water and then crawls into bed fully dressed without eating or bathing. He sleeps for eight uninterrupted hours. In the afternoon he wakes up with a pounding headache half an hour before his shift starts. As he scrubs a hand over his face, feeling like actual sewer sludge congealed into the shape of a man, he catches sight of the leather bracelet that’s still attached to him. It’s such a simple thing—little more than reclaimed trash. Frowning, he unbuttons it, tucks it in his bedside drawer. 

His whole body’s covered in bruises and scrapes, which he sees the full extent of when he hops in the shower. It looks like he fell down the stairs or something. Or like he got dragged down the stairs by someone who was already falling. The spot where Billy clung to the back of his thigh is purple, and there’s a long scratch down the side of his calf he has no memory of getting. He scrubs the grime off his body and washes his hair but doesn’t have time to style or even dry it. Has to get right into his stale-smelling sailor suit, yank on his Nikes, and leave the house that way. He grabs a pack of Poptarts for the road, although he’s been trying not to eat stuff like that. 

Just as he’s about to head out, he remembers his missing wallet. “Oh, rats.” He’s got no money for gas or food or smokes without it, and his dad’s gonna have a field day if they have to freeze his credit card and wire him some cash from Seattle or New Zealand or wherever the hell his parents are. He remembers now he must have taken the wallet out to pay the cover for the show, and maybe to buy beer, later. He just hopes to God he dropped it in the Camaro on the way back and not in a field halfway across Indiana. 

He pulls the walkie out of his duffel bag and tunes it to the channel Dustin told him to use if he needs to get in touch with the _Party-at-large_.

“Any of you little weirdos around?” He calls into the mouthpiece. Static fizzes out through the speaker. “I need Max to ask her brother something for me.” Nothing. 

Next he pulls out the 1985 telephone directory and starts flipping through, wondering if the Hargroves are even listed, when they just moved to Hawkins last fall. But when he gets to the H’s, following the entries down with a fingertip, there’s a _Hargrove, Neil,_ separated from _Harrington, John and Patricia_ by maybe a dozen listings. Steve’s heart pounds as he dials the number. No way in a million years he’d try to call Billy if he wasn’t broke and screwed. 

On the third ring someone picks up.

“Hello, you’ve reached the Hargrove residence,” answers a soft, tentative voice. “Who may I ask is calling?” 

“Uh, hi, Mrs. Hargrove. This is Steve, Steve Harrington. I’m a friend of Max’s,” he says. “And, uh, Billy’s,” he adds with far less confidence. 

“Ah, you’re the Harrington boy!” Mrs. Hargrove says with a little more enthusiasm. “I’ve heard so much about the work your mother does for the community. Really inspiring.” 

“Yep, that’s her, always giving back,” Steve says weakly. “Look, is Billy around?” 

“Oh,” Mrs. Hargrove’s voice quiets again, “no, dear, he just left for work a little while ago.” 

“Darn,” says Steve, for her benefit. “Well, could you ask him to give me a call? It’s a little urgent. I, uh, think I left my wallet in his car,” he confesses, glad she can’t see him blush. 

There’s a long pause, and when Mrs. Hargrove speaks again, her voice is tense and hushed. Steve has to strain to hear her. “Oh. Y-yes, um. Why don’t I take your number.” 

Steve recites his digits through the sudden clog of shame in his throat. He chokes out a thank you, hangs up, and runs out the door. 

He’s very late for work, and he has to weave around the line of customers reaching almost to the entrance. For a blessed while there’s no room to focus on anything but scooping ice cream as fast as his sore arms will scoop, cringing at kids’ loud chatter, and cursing fate for making him work in the brightest, noisiest place in Hawkins. 

Finally there’s a lull and Robin turns to him, looking like she’s gonna rip him a new one for leaving her to deal with the Saturday afternoon rush by herself, but then her expression changes. He follows her eyes to the rainbow of injuries up and down his arms and legs. The uniform, of course, hides nothing. 

“Steve,” she says, sounding alarmed, and Steve remembers what he told her about Billy. 

“Oh, no,” he manages to say. “Mosh pit.” 

“Okay.” She keeps eyeing him. “You look like a bear tried to maul you but got bored halfway through.” 

He’s saved from inventing a comeback by the arrival of more rowdy kids. He spends the day dragging his feet and ignoring every one of Robin’s mocking follow-up questions about his “wild night.” Maybe once or twice, toward the end of the shift, he finds himself watching the entrance of the shop, a giddy twist in his gut. Two nights in a row would be odd, but. Last night was odd. And for once it would save him some trouble if Billy showed up, because Steve could ask about his wallet, and Billy could go check for it right then and there, and it’d be great, for that and only that reason. But Billy doesn’t come by. 

—

When Steve gets home that night, the message light is flashing on the answering machine in the kitchen. He plops down on the plush leather seat of a stool, slumps over the marble countertop of the bar, and hits play. 

“I don’t have your shit,” says a low, gruff voice, no greeting, no preamble. Steve can hear Billy’s saliva, like the phone’s pressed as close to his mouth as can be. “And don’t you dare call my house again.” A pause, then, quick and quiet, “See you.” 

Maybe Steve replays it a few times, dissecting that _see you_ —was that just Billy remembering some half-assed version of manners before he hung up, or does he really mean, _I’ll see you_?—before the practical, non-sex-related implications of the message hit him. _Balls_ , he thinks. His dad’s gonna crucify him. 

Reluctantly, he wanders over to the fridge to look for the hotel card his mom always sticks up there before she and Dad leave on a trip, but he doesn’t see one. Steve blinks as a huge and unexpected sense of betrayal smacks into his chest. Then he spots the card lying on the ground, along with the little round magnet that held it up. Huh. It _was_ Seattle. 

—

That night Steve wakes with a jolt around one, the breath stuck in his chest. He dreamed Billy straddled him in a dim, noisy house, and he was about to hit Steve again, but instead slid a thick, heavy ring onto Steve’s finger, said, “You gotta be responsible for this.” And Steve said, “Me?” And Billy said, “Who else, numbnuts?” 

Then they were alone in a field and Billy was underneath him, squirming, saying, “King Steve,” all lit by the glow of fireflies and the moon, which Steve could see even facing the ground, and Steve’s body was searching, searching. But Billy went board-stiff against him and the color bled from his skin, left him grey and slick and cold, and then his limbs were everywhere, snaking tight around Steve, pulling them both underground while Steve thrashed and yelled, “Don’t.” Then it was dark. The last thing Steve heard before he woke up was Billy’s voice, quiet and sad, saying, “See you.”

Steve goes downstairs, makes some of his mom’s herbal tea, spikes it with rum, and falls back asleep in front of the TV, ignoring the ache of dread in his stomach. By now he’s got a routine.   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [end credits](https://open.spotify.com/track/0mYaDPgvNkXgXS3TVjuITD?si=7n7rQhStQJeJCh-8l1NLuQ)   
> 


	3. HERMIT CRAB

On the last day of June, life gets interesting again. And then it gets so, so shitty. 

Steve’s dream hangs over him that morning, makes him jitter around like some bemulleted Cthulhu’s ‘bout to crash through the ceiling. Yeah, he listens when Dustin talks. 

“Come on, Harrington,” he clucks, scraping eggs around in a pan, occasionally jabbing himself on Needles’, well, needles, where she’s leant up on the kitchen island behind him. “You see any monsters around here?” He gestures wildly with the spatula, flinging a blob of scrambled egg into the bowl of fake, dusty lemons on the island, where it blends right in. 

So he chokes his breakfast down standing up, and he hauls his ass to work, because ice cream is his life now. Then, an hour into his shift, Dustin drops in, like a ray of goddamn sunshine. 

There’s this moment when Steve’s sitting in the boat booth on an unofficial break, listening to the kid gush about his probably-fake girlfriend and feeling all’s right with the world. And it hits him that he got depressed because a fifteen-year-old spent a month at nerd camp. That re-depresses him, but it doesn’t last long, ‘cause Dustin’s gap-toothed grin is infectious, and he brings something Steve needed even more, maybe: a mystery to solve. A chance to be something besides what he is. 

For the rest of the week, Steve lives in Russian Conspiracy-land, cracking codes and winning fights and forming lifelong bonds, and he spares hardly a thought for his future, or his dad’s judgment, or his tragic love life. 

Sometimes, when it gets slow in the evenings, his mind strays to some places it shouldn’t: a sports car that flies down the highway, a barn full of heat and sound, the inside of someone’s throat. But as the days tick by with no fresh workplace harassment, Steve figures Billy must’ve scratched whatever itch was bringing him to Scoops Ahoy. And that’s good, because Steve—well, Steve hardly knows what happened. He was drunk and lonely. Mistakes were made. 

And because. Robin. Because they’re terrified, trapped, trusting each other; they’re stoned out of their minds; they’re laughing and running and winning. They’re watching one family’s close brush with incest, and they’re throwing up, like, everything ever, down on the floor in the women’s room. And in the midst of all this, something rises to the surface, this clear, shiny bead of knowledge; and Steve can’t help but laugh shaky-like, sagging back on his heels: this is what he really wants, how it’s supposed to be. It’s Robin, lanky Robin, with her dry wit and her outrageous talent, with her refusal to take his shit—this girl’s gonna make him better. 

Okay, but: he tells her all that, and then she’s saying, “Steve,” her eyes begging him to get it. It knocks him on his ass, when he does. On the tip of his tongue is, “Me too,” but the words stick behind his teeth, because it’s not the same at all, is it? Billy’s shoulders get him going, but so did Nancy’s tits. And he couldn’t ever— _love_ Billy (God, yuck) the way he loved Nancy. Hell, he barely likes Billy. Didn’t like Dennis-from-camp, either, that little fucker pushed Steve into the lake every chance he got, until the night on the dock when they hit on what he really wanted. 

Steve doesn’t know why. He just likes the press of boys’ bodies on his, likes their sharp smell. He likes letting loose, getting to push and be pushed in a way that you can’t with a girl. (Or anyway you shouldn’t.) He can’t imagine ever looking at a dude the way Robin looks now, defending freakin’ Tammy Thompson’s honor, all earnest and sweet. What happened with him and Billy wasn’t sweet, or nice, or even healthy. It was just gross, and if Steve had any self-control he wouldn’t have done it. So he doesn’t say anything, just teases Robin, lets her know he’ll be cool. Loves her, quietly. 

Next thing he knows he’s crashing the TDFTHR into the car that’s hurtling toward Nancy, and it’s only in that moment of ear-ringing shock afterward that it clicks for him, that it’s the same car he napped in six days ago. Billy’s Camaro, on fire. And as he and Robin huddle in the back of Nancy’s station wagon, watching a meat monster pile apocalyptically after them, Nancy and Jonathan and Lucas and Will all speculate stoically on whether Billy’s dead, whether _Steve just killed him_. Steve claps a hand over his mouth as something wet and dirty surges up from his stomach, his limbs going bloated and numb. 

Worst part is, he can’t blame them. They’re being pragmatic, and Billy was a piece of shit before he was possessed, what did he ever do but victimize any of them? Except for last week, on his birthday, when he gave Steve a bracelet, a blowjob, a bottle of water. 

And everything’s exploding light and color, but Steve still sees it when Billy, not-yet-dead, puts his body between El and the monster. From up on the balcony, he looks inhumanly strong, and hopelessly small. And Steve’s watching when the monster holds Billy upright and tears his heart out, tossing him down like a doll. Then there’s a pause that feels like forever, but is probably less than a minute, before the monster thrashes and dies, before soldiers swarm the scene and block Billy from view.

Max will swear—over and over, before and during the hours of interrogation/debriefing that follow—that she saw uniformed men strap an oxygen mask on Billy before they hauled his body away. No one will know whether to believe her. 

Steve signs some more NDAs. He’s fed a story about a brawl he supposedly had with a former classmate, hours before the “fire.” What were they fighting over? Girls, probably. It’s not too far-fetched. 

By the end of it, Steve’s vision is blurring, and with the adrenaline worn off, his face hurts so much he feels sick. Doesn’t seem to matter he’s had worse. Robin’s parents pick them up and Steve stays the night at the Buckley house, ditching his ravaged uniform for borrowed sweats, passing out within minutes in the former bedroom of Robin’s much-older brother who works in the city as some kind of analyst. Then somehow it’s daytime and Steve’s mom is there, standing tall and kind against the shelves of comic books and figurines, and she bundles him into her Lincoln Continental and brings him home.

—

For two days, Steve does nothing but sleep, warm compresses clutched to his face. Sometimes he levers himself up for reluctant spoonfuls of the soft mushy things his mom brings him to eat. Her oatmeal tastes like wet sand. 

At some point his dad returns, and through the walls Steve hears the two of them argue, more often, more loudly than he’s ever heard them. Still, it doesn’t seem important. Whenever Steve tries to get out of bed, this thing happens, where his head feels full of green water, too heavy to lift and too mucky to think. He figures it’s some lingering effect of the Russian drugs, but he can’t tell his mom that, so she gets it in her head he has low-level carbon monoxide poisoning from the fire, and she drags him—almost literally, in his smelly sweats and yogurt-crusted t-shirt—to the family doctor. It’s so hot outside Steve wants to die. 

His dad comes with them, inexplicably. Sitting there in the beige waiting room with his parents on either side of him, Steve wonders if he’s somehow regressed to age six. Dr. Wilson finds nothing wrong with Steve physically besides his beaten face, but he recommends a shrink if the exhaustion and headaches continue for more than two weeks.

They leave, Steve’s parents murmuring to each other like angry bees, and Steve can’t wait to get back in his bed in his air-conditioned room. Instead he finds himself in the used lot at the Chevrolet dealership, shuffling along between rows of cars while his parents endure the salesman. He thinks maybe he was told about this outing before and wasn’t listening. This must be some kind of compromise—his parents will replace the car destroyed in the “fire” (which, how?), but this one will be used, since he’s an adult now and can’t totally mooch, fire victim or not. 

The sun beats down, glaring off the hoods of cars, forcing Steve to squint. Normally he feels things when he looks at cars, but now all that’s happening is keywords pinging in his mind. Red, green, brown. Buick, Mustang, Cavalier. Finally he comes to a stop, caught on a honey-colored marvel. Dodge Caravan. He leans against the side with his arms folded up top, looks in on its three rows of plush seats, and thinks how nice it would be to crawl in and lie down. Also: every one of his friends would fit in this car at once. If they needed to run, he could carry them all.

Steve’s mom, Steve’s dad, and the salesman have all come to stand a few paces away, watching in muted alarm as Steve basically hugs the car. “This one,” he says.

His dad raises an eyebrow. “Are you a mother of five, Steven?”

Steve just blinks at him. 

They get him the car, but his dad has to drive it home, ‘cause Steve’s eyes won’t stay open. 

That night around 3 he wakes with a start, the glow of the pool outside illuminating his wallpaper in dim, crisscrossed lines, like the plan of a city that never got built. Shuddering suddenly, he gropes for the drawer beside his bed, pulls out a black strip of what was once skin. Holds it tight to his own, as he wraps himself back into sleep.

Not much changes over the next few days, though Steve is gradually able to sit up for longer periods when his mom brings him food, can occasionally dredge up more than two words in response to her increasingly pushy questions. His dad leaves on another trip, but his mom stays. Steve wants to tell her to go. He’s been doing fine without her for over two years. Where does she get off telling him a shower would do him good? What does she know about the things he needs?

One day she walks into his room with the cordless phone and jams it up against his ear without asking permission. His hand wraps around it on instinct. 

“Yeah,” he grunts, watching his mom leave through slitted eyes. 

“What the hell, Steve-o? I’ve been trying to reach you for days! Did you let your battery die?”

“Guess so,” Steve yawns. Though this kid has no right to nag him about batteries ever.

“What’s going on, man?” Dustin asks. “Are you okay?” 

Steve rolls over so his face is half-smothered in the pillow, phone squashed to his other ear. “Just tired.” 

“You’re tired?”

Steve nods. “Dead tired.” 

“So you’ve just been sleeping for the past four days?!” Dustin curses. “What is wrong with everyone?”

Steve shrugs.

“Steve??”

“Later, kiddo.” He hangs up, tosses the phone on his nightstand, and goes back to sleep.

The next day he wakes to find both Dustin and Robin standing in his room. They have matching wrinkled noses, and Robin is looking around at Steve’s plain decor like she’s disappointed but not surprised. When Steve just gapes at them, Dustin gets in his space poking and prodding, stretching back his eyelid to see the pupil. 

“Jesus, Dustin,” Steve groans, pushing him off. “I saw a doctor. I’m fine.”

“Then why do you look and smell like a zombie?”

“Think it’s just. You know. The drugs.”

“What drugs?”

“Russian drugs.”

Robin stares at him. “Steve, those wore off the same day.”

“Yeah but, withdrawal.”

Dustin and Robin exchange a look.

In the end, they convince him to sit up cross-legged so they can join him on the bed. Steve’s mom brings them juice, which they sip while Dustin updates Steve on the status of various party members. Eleven is living with the Byers family now, and apparently it’s been hard on all four of them. Max has been incommunicado almost as much as Steve, and what little contact she’s had was enough to get her fighting with Lucas again. Through some convolution of middle school era politics, this means that El is also fighting with Mike. Basically, everything sucks.

Steve struggles to contribute anything more than grunts and “yeah”s to the conversation, but slowly, his head gets lighter, and he regains the ability to focus on his friends’ faces, remembers pieces of his own vocabulary.

Robin sits with one knee drawn up, gazing out the window at the pool, violently blue under the sun. She takes a long swig of juice. “Doesn’t help that it’s so hot out.”

“Ugh,” Steve agrees.

“We should invite everyone over to swim. Since no one wants to go to the public pool anymore.”

Steve’s hand twitches, clamping down over the bracelet on his wrist.

Dustin glances between Robin and Steve. “Yeah, Steve hates that pool, though.”

“Why would you hate your pool?”

“Bad memories,” Steve mumbles, staring down into the rolling sea of his rumpled comforter. He could tell her, now, but he doesn’t want to go there.

“So make better ones.” 

Damn. Ruthless.

“It would be nice to have some neutral ground for a reconciliation,” Dustin says thoughtfully.

“It’s not neutral to me!” Steve protests. Robin and Dustin look encouraged by his passion, doing eyebrows at each other. They set the date for Friday.

Toward the end of the visit, Dustin skips out to use the bathroom, probably ‘cause he drank three cups of juice, and Robin scoots closer to Steve on the bed, where he’s winding the slack on Billy’s bracelet—loose on his own wrist—around his index finger.

“Steve,” she says quietly, her eyes sincere. Steve can hardly bear to be looked at that way. “What’s wrong?” 

“I don’t know, Rob,” he sighs, twisting the suede around his fingertip until it’s bright red.

Her eyes follow the motion, but all she says is, “Hm.”

—

On Friday, Steve’s alarm goes off at eight. He’s not the one who set it. 

“Oh, fuck off,” he groans. He wriggles over to the side of the bed, smacks the clock into silence, and sinks back under, pulling a pillow over his face. Fifteen minutes later, his mom comes jogging up the stairs, calls for him from the doorway and, getting no response, comes in and nudges at him till he whips the pillow aside and squints up at her. 

“Big day today, right, Stevie?” she says hopefully, reminding him he can still bail. Except that bailing would take more effort than compliance. 

“Hmm.”

“I made crepes,” she offers. 

“Yeah, okay.”

Steve still can’t muster up much of an appetite, but he follows her down the stairs. At least, as he slouches on a barstool drinking OJ, listening to her yak about what an ‘interesting young woman’ Robin is (Steve doesn’t think she knows what to make of Dustin), the mud in his head starts to thin out, till it’s no longer a fight to stay upright. Obviously, the treatment for lake-brain is to get off his ass, but that doesn’t mean he can’t hate it. 

Steve eats crepes topped with thinly sliced fruit, and when his mom sends him upstairs to shower and dress—it was decided yesterday Steve would pick everyone up in the Caravan, since it’s so miserably hot, and also to force Steve to leave the house—he actually makes it through most of his hair routine, though there’s a sad lack of volume going on. He pulls on blue swim trunks, a Benny’s Burgers t-shirt he’s had forever, and striped flip-flops, and calls it an outfit. His bruises are greenish now, like algae. 

When he steps outside, the glare of the sun makes his eyes bleed, and he goes back for his Ray Bans, sighing as the world’s edges go soft and warm. He gets in his new, ridiculous car and starts his tour of virtually every neighborhood in Hawkins, driving slow and cautious. He tries out the stereo, turning the radio to his favorite station, but turns it off mid-song, the music too intense.

First he picks up Robin, with Dustin as his next planned stop, because he needs a buffer to deal with the other kids. 

“What’s up, dingus?” says Robin, giving his shoulder a little shake as she hops in the passenger seat. She’s wearing white overalls over some kind of two-tone, one-piece swimsuit.

“I’m alive,” says Steve, pulling carefully back out of her driveway. The size of the Caravan is taking some getting used to.

“You sure about that?”

“Pretty sure.”

“I’ll take it.” 

Dustin’s already waiting on the front porch when they get to the Henderson house, fiddling with his radio. He’s got a giant knapsack half the size of his body that he laboriously hauls across the lawn to the Caravan.

“You moving in?” Steve asks incredulously as the bag tumbles down over the backseat, followed by Dustin.

Dustin scoffs. “I just brought some games and activities.” 

“I thought we said this was _not_ a party. Out of respect for the dead.” 

Dustin does his Steve’s-stupid voice. “It’s not. It’s a gathering of friends and associates who like to play games and do activities.” 

Next up: The Byers’. In the warm glow of the tinted sun, the house looks almost nice, with the busy clutter of the porch, the laundry swaying on the line. 

The front door swings open and Joyce comes out to greet them, moving kind of slow. She raises her eyebrow when she takes in the Caravan, but doesn’t comment as Steve rolls the window down. There are deep bags under her eyes, a blankness in them that feels familiar, but she’s got a brave face, that maternal durability intact around her. Steve does his best to smile back, humbled.

She leans her head in the window to get a look at everybody. “Hey, kids,” she says. “Will and El will be out in a minute, then I gotta get to work.” 

“Hi, Ms. Byers,” Dustin says, “Have you heard anything? For Max.”

Joyce shakes her head. “I think Owens is dodging me.”

Dustin sighs, sounding resigned, scarily adult.

“I know,” says Joyce with a weak smile. “Hard to grieve when there’s no body.” And all at once, the smile shatters, and Joyce grabs at her stomach like she’s been shot, just for a second.

They all sit with that for a moment.

“Dustin, you want to go check on them?” Steve says. 

“Roger that.” 

By the time the door closes behind Dustin, Joyce just looks tired again. About as tired as a person can look. Her hands tremble as she pulls a pack of cigarettes from her men’s jean pocket, lighting up with a quiet sigh, “I was gonna quit.”

“No judgments here, Ms. Byers,” Robin offers, her voice kind.

“Joyce, please.” Joyce pulls up a little smirk for Robin. “I don’t think we were officially introduced.” 

“Robin.” And they shake hands over Steve’s head, and everyone laughs a little.

“Thanks for doing this, Steve,” Joyce says on a smoky exhale. “They all need a distraction.” 

“Hey, blame those two. I’m just the victim of a home invasion.” 

The three kids come out then, Dustin walking between Will and El, talking quietly to Will while El stares at the ground, trudging across the yard like she’s being dragged out of the house. Steve can relate. The kids pile into the backseat in the same order, Will sitting behind Robin while Eleven sits behind Steve, and Dustin pokes his head into the front seat, interfacing between everybody. 

“Nice car, Steve,” Will says mildly, while El picks at a scab on her knee. 

“I know, right?” Dustin enthuses. “A person could live in this thing.” 

“Don’t even think about it,” says Steve.

Their second-to-last stop is the Sinclairs’, where Mike agreed to wait with Lucas for simplicity’s sake (Erica was invited, but had other plans.) Steve is glad of that, because he doesn’t wanna run into Nancy in this state, with his hair situation so chancy, not that she gives a shit. Lucas and Mike come on out when Steve rolls down the long driveway, like they were watching from the window. Mike asks if Steve borrowed neighbor-lady Mrs. Klinsky’s ride, and the atmosphere increases at least 80% in awkwardness as the kids clamber out of the car to let Lucas and Mike into the back-back, Eleven pointedly drawing herself out of hugging range. 

Finally, Dustin directs Steve to the house on Cherry, where the houses are closer together and the road is rocky like it hasn’t been repaved in Steve’s lifetime. It’s the first time Steve’s seen Max’s place, and, well, it’s not much to look at. The yard’s a bit overgrown with summer weeds—maybe it was Billy’s job to mow it. 

“One of you wanna go knock?” says Steve, eyes stuck to the plain little house, the cars crowded into the narrow driveway. 

There’s a collective, awkward pause. “Max always waits outside,” says Lucas.

“Well, I don’t see her.” 

The weird silence continues. Steve twists around to look into the back, and the kids are all giving each other meaningful looks. Mike and Lucas look ridiculous with their skinny knees around their ears, feet propped up on Dustin’s stupid bag. Steve turns to Robin and she pulls a face, shrugging.

“I’ll go,” says El.

Mike makes a displeased sound.

“Robin, you go with her,” Dustin interjects.

“Oookay.” Robin and El get out of the car and follow the paved path up to the house. The bush by the door spills over in a riot of red blooms, shocking against the house’s washed-out siding. 

“What’s all this about?” Steve asks the boys, waving his hand around to indicate the car, the house, and all the shifty behavior taking place inside-slash-around it. 

“Max’s stepdad is a dick,” Mike says succinctly. 

Steve clicks his tongue, sitting back in his seat. “Figures,” he mutters, squinting to see what’s going on through the screened-in front porch. The door opens and a thin, long-haired figure appears. The three have a brief conversation, the woman’s head seeming to dart back toward the house every minute or so. It jars something in Steve’s memory—that hushed tone Mrs. Hargrove used on the phone. The woman disappears for a moment and comes back with a small bundle that she hands to Eleven, and Robin and El troop back down the path, climb back in the car.

“Max’s mom said she has chores to do, but she’ll skateboard over when she’s done,” Robin tells them.

“Lying,” El mutters darkly. Her speech seems to have regressed since Hopper passed.

“What did she give you?” Steve wonders. 

El doesn’t reply, so Robin fills in, “Swimsuit.” 

“Oh.” He guesses it makes sense that El wouldn’t have one. The story is that El’s a cousin of Will’s, flown in from out of state after her guardian’s death. The two of them do look related.

It’s the most awkward pool-not-party ever. Robin finds a boombox and puts on a station that plays relentlessly upbeat pop. Steve’s mom tries way too hard to interest them in various snacks. None of Dustin’s “games and activities” are compatible with water. Robin and Dustin do almost all of the talking, which starts out soothing but ends up painful pretty quick, since even the world’s biggest nerds eventually run out of common topics to nerd-out about. 

Eleven can’t swim and, though at first she gamely wades into the shallow end, something freaks her out and she retreats to the pool deck, hunkering down on a towel with her arms wrapped around her knees. Mike bugs her till Steve tells him to knock it off, and then he goes to commiserate with Lucas in a corner. Will sits on the diving board, swinging his legs and saying nothing. Dustin wears a t-shirt in the pool and Steve feels bad for calling him roast beef. 

Steve’s wiped out from all the driving and talking and he flops into a lounge chair, ignoring Robin and Dustin goading him to get in the water. He lies there limply in the heat, monitoring them all for signs of sunburn and/or drowning, slurping lemonade till his throat hurts. He feels like the world’s laziest and most uncomfortable lifeguard. 

He thinks about the one time in early June he made it to the public pool, before he knew Billy worked there, but after Billy started coming to Scoops. Up on his throne, Billy seemed to take every opportunity to blow his whistle and yell, but he let Steve be, except for occasional, long looks. And, well, Steve was looking too. He rubs his thumb over the braided bumps of the bracelet; New Edition tells him _cool it now_. “A little late for that,” he mumbles to himself.

“This was a bad idea,” Robin says finally, wrapped in a pool noodle and floating aimlessly on her back. 

“You guys think Max is okay?” Lucas blurts. He’s clinging tightly to the side of the pool, while Mike leans on the ladder beside him. 

Everyone’s quiet. “I’m sure she’ll be along soon,” Robin eventually tries, in an awkward approximation of an adult. 

“El said her mom was lying about the chores,” Mike says. “What if something’s happening?” 

Eleven jerks in her lounge chair, sloshing lemonade over the side of a plastic cup as she brandishes it at Mike and Lucas. “What do you care?” 

Lucas and Mike turn to stare at her. “Of course we care,” says Lucas.

“You say missing brother is a psycho.” 

“Well, he was!” Mike protests.

“Is!” shouts El. 

“And it’s _step_ brother,” Lucas adds. “Max would be the first to tell you.” 

“Come on, El,” Dustin sighs, paddling over to the side of the pool. “Billy was basically eviscerated.” 

“Max wouldn’t lie!” 

“No one’s saying she’s lying,” says Dustin. “Just that she saw what she wanted to see.” He pauses. “It happens.”

The pool filter hums. Birds sing. 

“Holy shit!” Steve yelps/jumps as a spurt of cold water lands in his lap. Robin’s crouched at the edge of the pool, just her scrunchie crown and evil eyes popping out of the water, angling her noodle up just right to funnel water in his direction when she blows on the other end. The next stream glances off his shins as he tries to scramble away, falling off the chair instead.

“The fuck, Robin?!” 

“Get in the pool, loser!” 

Sprawled on the concrete with a scraped elbow, Steve looks at the sky and the pool, too-blue even through the filter of his glasses. He looks at the kids moping around, needing things they don’t know how to get, and he does feel like a loser. Technically, he’s the adult here, and he hasn’t lost any family, isn’t coping with a disrupted home life, or struggling to stay connected to a grieving girlfriend. He’s gotta get over himself. 

He gets to his feet, pulling off his sunglasses and t-shirt and chucking them into the seat of his lounge chair. 

“Cowabunga,” he deadpans, plugging his nose mid-word, and takes a running jump, forcing Robin to wriggle out of his way. Underwater, the whole world is blue, cold, still. Silent. Then his head breaks the surface and everyone’s laughing, a little, droplet-covered. He made a big splash. His hair’s ruined. 

Just then, the _schick_ of the back door sliding open turns everyone’s heads toward the patio. Max steps through, ushered by Steve’s mom, who’s got a hand on her shoulder and a concerned frown on her face. Max looks—well, she looks like she might pass out, all wide-eyes and red-faced and sweaty. She’s wearing a tattered denim vest so overlarge it reaches to mid-thigh.

“Max,” says Lucas, his voice high and earnest, struggling out of the water. “What happened?”

They all sort of gravitate toward her. El gets up to stand by her other side, Will climbs down off the diving board, Robin and Dustin and Mike and Steve move to crawl out of the pool. But Max jerks her head toward Steve’s mom. “Family stuff,” she manages to say. 

Steve’s mom seems to take the hint. She pours Max a cup of water from the pitcher on the patio table, presses it into her hand. “Easy to get dehydrated on a day like this,” she says lightly, goes back inside with a nod to Steve. 

There’s a pause as they all wait to be sure she’s out of earshot.

“Billy’s alive,” Max blurts.

There’s a pop, like the unclogging of a drain, and Steve’s eyes open fully, drinking in the light. 

Lucas cries, “He attacked you?!”, stepping up to Max, reaching out to cradle her elbow. 

She throws him off, wobbles on her feet. “No, you jerk! He called me from the hospital!” 

Eleven supplants Lucas at Max’s side, gazing at her with some teen-girl telepathy none of them can ever understand. Or maybe it’s actual telepathy. “Alive,” says El.

“Yeah,” Max nods, starting to cry. 

_Alive._

“How is he,” Steve bursts out, his voice cracking as he steps closer, the concrete rough and hot on the balls of his feet. 

Max lifts her blotchy face from where El’s arms have wrapped around her. “I don’t really know,” she says. “He just said he was bored.”

Steve barks a laugh, ‘cause Billy _would_. 

“The doctor said—” Max is whispering, but they all hear her, because the whole group is basically huddled around her, now. “He said Billy was in an accident. Said he has some, rare brain disease that made him flip out and skip town and crash his car out in the middle of nowhere. Said they only just called ‘cause he wouldn’t talk, and his license was missing, and it took days to trace his plates.” 

“Where are they keeping him?” Will asks, calm certainty in his voice. 

“Fort Wayne Neurological Center.” Eleven has eased Max down into one of the lounge chairs and pets at her hair with painstaking concentration. Her embrace tightens as fresh distress shakes through Max. “The doctor said I can visit him Monday, but neither my mom or Neil can take me.” She hunches down, eyes fixed on the ice melting in her cup. “I know Jonathan just started that job, and Nancy—”

El points abruptly at Steve. “Steve will.” 

Everyone turns to look at him, which is always a little bit terrifying.

“I’m not doing anything,” he mumbles, shoving his hands under his arms to hide the shivers. Billy’s leather bracelet is wet and warm, nestled safely in Steve’s armpit. 

—

Monday morning, 9 AM, Steve pulls up to the Hargrove house. Once again, Max is nowhere to be seen; his fingers dance on the steering wheel like hurt spiders. There’s one car in the skinny drive, a little mossy-green sedan. So Steve parks on the street, stubs out his cigarette in the ashtray—already shamefully full—and climbs out of the Caravan, follows the walkway up over the neatly trimmed lawn.

Steve trails his knuckles over the door to the screened-in porch, hanging just a hair off its hinges, and lets himself in. There’s an aluminum patio table with a glass top, four matching chairs sitting stiffly around it. Steve presses the black button of the doorbell and hears it ring inside, stares down at the 2D teddy bears camped out on the welcome mat. A voice from inside calls, “Just a moment!” 

The door clicks open and Max’s mom emerges, dressed in a dark green grocer’s polo and slacks, her damp hair gleaming dully red. “Hello? … Oh! You must be Steve.” She looks up with a brittle smile, lavender half-circles ringing her eyes.

“And you must be Mrs. Hargrove,” Steve says quickly, “nice to meet you.” He puts out a hand, giving her his best good-boy smile, nervous of what she might think of him after their phone call. 

But Mrs. Hargrove just clasps his hand in her small, clammy one, her own smile growing a bit stronger. “Call me Susan. Please, come inside. I’m sorry, we’re all running a little behind schedule today.”

“No worries.” Steve steps into a small living room, blanched by the weak light that comes through the gingham curtains. He smells baking cookies or brownies or something and remembers he didn’t eat breakfast. On a stand by the door is a vase of yellow lilies, stunningly bright. “Lovely,” Steve says automatically, nodding toward them. 

Susan turns and stares at the flowers like she’s never seen them before. “Oh. Yes, aren’t they?” Suddenly she fixes Steve with a look, her blue eyes startlingly large and childlike. “Thank you so much, Steve, for doing this. Neither my husband nor I was able to get any time off work,” she explains, biting her lip.

“Well, of course. I, uh, can’t imagine how difficult it’s been, with Billy missing and all.”

“Oh, yes.” Susan twists the wedding ring on her finger like she’s turning a screw. “Why don’t you sit down. Maxine is just getting some things together.” She steps silently toward the doorway at the back of the room, heels never touching the ground. “Can I get you anything to drink?”

“No thank you, ma’am.”

Susan disappears down a hallway, and Steve hears her tell Max he’s arrived. Hands in his pockets, he wanders around the living room, unwilling to be still. There’s a decent-sized TV facing a beigish couch, a corduroy armchair in an almost toxic orange-yellow, a beer can left in the built-in cupholder. Over on the mantle, flanked by a pair of bow tie-wearing teddy bears, are three framed photos. On the left, a ginger-headed girl of six or seven, wearing some plaid ruffled horror, smiling for the camera while her eyes broadcast skepticism. No wonder the kids never hang out here, with that kind of blackmail material displayed for all to see. 

The larger central photo features Susan in a wedding dress and veil, wrapped around a stern-looking man who must be Billy’s father. Steve frowns, wondering how long they’ve been married—the woman in the photo looks much younger than the one he just spoke to.

He has to lean in to clearly see the final picture, a snapshot and the smallest of the three. Billy’s there in a basketball jersey, a couple years younger, his dad’s arm around his shoulders. The man gazes calmly into the camera, while Billy smiles wide, his white teeth and short curls making him shine like a trophy. 

Throat tight, Steve goes to sit down, becoming aware of increasingly agitated shuffling and slamming sounds coming from the other room. Max calls in a stressed, annoyed tone, “I can’t _find_ it, Mom, he swore it was here but I don’t—” 

Susan gives a little sigh. “I’m sure he’ll be fine with—” 

“No! He asks for one damn thing—” 

“Language,” Susan says faintly. 

“—and I, for one, am not at all sure he’ll be fine!” 

Steve twiddles his thumbs. These walls must be crazy thin. Susan appears in the doorway and says, her tone pained, “Could you please help her?” 

“Of course.” Steve jumps up and follows her down the hallway to the first door on the left, standing half-open. 

“She’s packing some things to take to her brother, but there’s a, a cassette that’s gone missing.” Susan’s twisting her ring again, looking somewhere around Steve’s shoulder.

“Metallica,” Max calls from inside the room. “Ride the Lightning. He asked for it specifically.” 

Steve peeks around the doorframe. 

It’s about what he might have expected, if he’d ever thought to picture Billy Hargrove’s room. With the tits— _yeah, sure, Billy_ —with the tits and the dartboard and general guy-funk. The stereo setup, the crates full of records. Max crouches on the floor, slamming the bottom drawer on Billy’s nightstand crookedly shut. She’s in a state like Steve’s never seen, her hair blazing all frizzy around her. A black backpack yawns open on the floor nearby, Walkman headphones poking out amid cassettes and clothing. 

“Hey, Steve,” she says distractedly. “Can you look in his closet? I’ve already checked all the shelves.” She trawls underneath Billy’s disheveled bed, drawing back with a screwed-up face and what looks like a black thong hanging from her finger. She yelps and flings it so far it almost hits Steve. 

Steve snorts at the whole situation. “Yeah, okay.”

“You’re going to see horrible things, but just keep moving.” 

The closet door hangs ajar, and Steve pulls it the rest of the way to reveal a surprisingly roomy space, jam-packed with all kinds of stuff. Billy owns a lot of clothes, when you combine the ones hanging up here with what’s strewn on his floor. Steve runs a hand over the bony left shoulders of Billy’s jackets and shirts, faltering when his fingers touch the rough polyester of a red button-down. The lingering smell of Billy’s cologne is almost too much to take. 

Above the hanging clothing is a large overhead storage shelf, stuffed with the randomest crap imaginable. Steve starts pulling things down: half-full cans of spray paint, a partially deflated basketball. Old school notebooks puffed up with papers, a trapper-keeper with a huge ink stain. A box full of kitchen wares and other basic household items, ranging from new-looking to dingy, and including not one, not two, but three muffin tins. 

“Shouldn’t this stuff be in the kitchen?” Steve asks Max, mystified. 

“Don’t ask me.”

What else? A cat litter box (clean and empty, thank God), which in turn holds a badly strained grocery bag full of rocks, and a battered owl decoy, like people stick on roofs to scare birds.

“Can’t go without one of these,” Steve quips, holding the thing up for Max to see.

She ducks her head with a laugh, “Or one of these,” and proceeds to pull a fucking mannequin arm out from under the bed. Steve laughs hysterically once he gets over his terror.

“I think your brother is a dragon,” Steve declares, when he catches his breath, “sitting on a hoard of trash.” He brandishes the cat box. “Do you guys even have a cat?!” 

Max rolls her eyes. “Don’t try to understand how his brain works. I think he just likes to get drunk and steal stuff.” 

“Okay, but. A litter box?”

She points into the closet. “Keep looking.” 

But Steve’s gotta say, “You think the Metallica tape was in his car, when—” 

“He swore it was in his room,” Max tells from halfway under the bed.

“Yeah, but you think maybe he’s. A little mixed up right now?” 

Max sighs, a big puff of air. “Basically all his favorite stuff was in that car. I just want him to have this one thing.”

“That’s, uh. Sweet.” 

“Let’s give it five minutes.” 

“Yeah, alright.”

As Steve turns back to the closet, Susan appears in the doorway, hair dry, face made-up, carrying a turquoise tupperware box. She tiptoes across the room and, with extreme care, sets the box down beside the open backpack.

“Well, I’m off,” she tells the room, retreating. “Please travel safe.”

“We will,” says Steve. 

“Tell him—to get well.” She takes a breath like she’s going to say something else, but then stops. 

Susan and Max exchange a charged look, Max breaking away with a small head shake. “I will.” 

“Thank you.” Susan goes, and Max dives back under the bed.

Steve returns to his task. He can see there’s even more stuff behind Billy’s clothes, so he pushes them aside, shoving hard to make them stay. To the right side of the closet there’s a stack of wooden crates forming a makeshift shelving unit, faced inward so Steve has to kneel down on the (conveniently placed!) stack of blankets to see what’s in there. The top two crates are crammed full of school books and paperbacks, while the one on the bottom has a few empty and half-empty liquor bottles, and a stack of magazines—Steve flips through real quick, looking for hidden porn, but there isn’t any, unless you count the beefcakes in _Muscle & Fitness _—atop a lidded cardboard box. 

His breath catches at this very plausible tape receptacle, and he scrambles to get the box open. But instead of tapes, the box is packed with food. Half-crushed packs of saltines, a tin of pudding like they serve in the school cafeteria, peanuts. A Carnation breakfast bar, sugar packets, suckers like they give you at the doctor. Two kinda squashy clementines. Steve turns the items over in his hands, struggling to process the mental image of bad boy Billy Hargrove squirreling food away like he’s in for a long winter.

As he shuffles items around, something peeks out at the bottom of the box—a grinning cartoon face.

“What the hell,” he whispers, truly fascinated as he eases the—greeting card out of the box.

On the front of the card is a drawing of an anthropomorphic airplane, an aviator scarf wrapped nonsensically around its neck. In its wake, white letters trail across the sky: HERE COMES A HAPPY BIRTHDAY. The card is creased and soft, and there’s a small scorch mark eating into one corner. Steve’s gentle as he opens it.

The message inside is written in green ink, a looping script that starts out big and gets smaller as it tumbles down the page. 

_Billy,_

_I can’t believe your 11 already. Hermit Crab, I know your growing up in the most wonderful ways. I think of you every day. I know we’ll see eachother again soon._

_All my love,_

_Mama_

Slowly, Steve closes the card and lays it down on the floor of the box, before carefully packing the food back inside, slotting the box back into the crate, replacing the magazines on top. He crawls backwards out of the closet, straightens up, and closes it. 

“Hey, Max,” he says when he can speak. “Why don’t we stop at the Fort Wayne mall on our way into town? I know they have a record store.” 

Max won’t meet his eyes. “I don’t have any money.” 

“I got it,” Steve says easily. “Now let’s get going.” He needs to get out of here immediately.

—

“Mind if I smoke?” Steve checks once they’re on the road. Ever since Friday he’s been buzzing with a weird energy he doesn’t know what to do with. All weekend, filling old notebooks with stupid swirl-thingies just to busy his hands, smudging up his fingers. The car’s filled up with cookie smell, and Steve really wants one, but taking cookies from a former dead guy seems rude, and he doesn’t want to delay their arrival any further by stopping for food, in case there’s some kind of visiting window they could miss unawares. 

Max shrugs like it never matters what she wants. An image flashes through Steve’s mind, of Max clinging to her seat in a Camaro going 120 mph, and he feels the bite of anger for the first time in weeks. He puts his pack away, though his fingers itch bad. 

He didn’t like it in Max’s house. 

“Your folks really couldn’t get off work?” he asks after a few minutes on the highway. He’s left the radio on some station that plays stuff from the 50s and 60s. Max zips and unzips Billy’s backpack where it sits between her knees. Her eyes flick toward Steve but she doesn’t answer. “What does, uh, Mr. Hargrove do?”

“He’s, some kind of contractor?” Max’s face screws up. “I think he’s in—heating and air. Or something.”

Steve laughs a little. “I don’t know what my dad does either.”

“ _My dad_ is a paramedic,” Max spits.

“Yeah, okay.” Steve keeps his eyes on the road. 

Max and Billy aren’t related, but they have the same blue fire in their eyes. Max shuts hers, sighing. “Sorry,” she mutters. “Something—happened. When Billy was Flayed. Between him and his dad.” 

“Something,” Steve repeats, trying not to push.

“It scared Neil.” Max looks out the window. “Neil doesn’t like to be scared.” 

Steve hums. He can’t imagine what it must have been like living with someone possessed by a literal demon. Still, that’s pretty cold, not going to see your son, after weeks of thinking him missing or dead. Unless—?

“What did they think happened to Billy?” 

“Just that he disappeared on the 4th. I couldn’t—” Max stops for a second. “They told me, those government people, they said I couldn’t tell anyone outside of this—” she draws a circle with her finger, a circle that includes herself, Steve, presumably everyone in Hawkins who’s signed an NDA over the past two years. “—that I’d seen Billy at the mall that day. I had to tell Mom and Neil I hadn’t seen him since breakfast on Wednesday. And then those people call, and they’ve got this whole story.”

“Jesus,” Steve says.

“They said,” and Max sounds choked up now, “said if I told my mom or Neil anything, it might not go so good for Billy.”

“Max. That sucks.”

She just shrugs again, turned away. They lapse back into silence. 

The steady traffic on the highway is a comforting bustle, but it’s not enough. Steve drives, whistling along to the radio, tapping his fingers.

His brain won’t stop trying to picture how Billy looked at eleven. 

He shouldn’t pry any further, with Max as tense as she is. But he can’t smoke and he can’t draw and he can’t drive any faster without breaking the law. 

“Can I ask you a question?” he eventually caves.

“Okay.”

“Do you know what happened with Billy’s mom?”

Max gets quiet for a long moment, stops her zippering. “They never talk about her. But, uh, I guess she left, when Billy was really young. Never heard from her since.”

“Damn. You think that’s why he’s—” he takes one hand off the steering wheel and flops it around uselessly. “The way he is.” 

Max snorts. “I mean, partly.” She looks out the window. “I think it messed both of them up pretty bad.” Ashen clouds gather overhead as they cross into Allen County, but it doesn’t rain. 

The Fort Wayne mall is the same as it ever was, when Steve’s mom would drag him here to buy back-to-school apparel. Plain old brick on the outside, not all glitzy like Starcourt. Not quite teeming, yet, with kids and teens, since it’s only eleven o’clock in the morning, but it’s getting there, a mishmash of excited voices, flashing colors, the nauseating-yet-alluring mix of salty food and factory-new and chemical perfume.

“Steve, come on,” Max says, and tugs on his hand for good measure. Steve realizes he’s been stopped in the middle of the floor, staring down at the ground like it’s gonna split open into an endless elevator shaft that he falls down forever. 

“Let’s get out of here ASAP,” he says.

“No duh.” 

They make it to a mall directory and stare at it for way too long before Max says, “There,” finger driving home into a little yellow rectangle, “One level up. Near Macy’s. Go, go, go.” 

Finally they see CAMELOT MUSIC in its medieval-style lettering, and they hurry inside, both breathing a little hard. The floor is glossy red, the displays grey, and there are music posters plastered over the walls. They hurry to the long back wall, where all the cassettes are shelved, drifting back and forth and bumping into each other more than once as they seek out the _Hard Rock & Metal _ section. 

Steve doesn’t know shit about metal, but Max quickly finds _Ride the Lightning_ , and then picks out a couple more tapes she recognizes from Billy’s destroyed collection. She selects a Mötley Crüe album and another by Iron Maiden, each choice taking long moments of frowning consideration. Every time she reaches for something, she looks to Steve for confirmation that it’s okay to spend the money, wearing a guarded expression. 

“Okay,” she says finally. “This should be good,” and moves toward the checkout.

“Just one sec,” Steve says distractedly, catching sight of the words _Punk & Post-Punk _as they pass by. He scans the stacks, racking his memory for the names of any of the bands Billy included on his horrible mixtape. God, you’d think Steve was eighty instead of eighteen. It’s like his brain is actually broken…

“Bad Brains!” He pulls an alarmingly yellow tape off the shelf with a whoop of triumph.

Meanwhile, Max brushes her fingers gently over a cassette entitled ROMEO VOID, oblivious to Steve’s breakthrough.

“You want that?” Steve asks.

“What?” Max snatches her hand back. “No.”

“Got it.” He reaches to pluck it off the rack, but Max blocks him. When he meets her eyes, she looks really stressed out. “Hey, it’s not a big deal.” 

Max hugs herself one-armed, raking at her hair with her other hand, and then looks up at him, her eyes searching. She must find what she’s looking for, because her posture relaxes a bit and she says, very small, “Okay, I guess.” 

The guy at the register, who has bleached hair and sleepy eyes, gives them a once-over as he rings up their purchases. Steve guesses it’s slightly odd to see some preppy dude and a fourteen-year-old girl buying all this heavy metal. It’s only as he’s forking over 35 bucks that he remembers he now subsists on an allowance much smaller than the one he had in high school, and he just spent all his cigarette money for the rest of the month. 

—

The facility is located atop a hill in a secluded, wooded area on the east side of town. They drive up a winding road closely bracketed by trees on either side, dappled in late morning sunlight. The building is nondescript, three stories of colorless stone, the windows on the upper floors barred. There are only two other cars parked in the lot; Steve assumes there’s employee parking in the back. When Steve steps out of the car, the air is eerily still, the chirping of a single bird the only identifiable sound.

“This isn’t creepy at all,” Steve comments, grabbing the tupperware and the bag of cassettes from the backseat, 

Max just gives him a sideways look as she hoists Billy’s backpack over her shoulders and starts walking toward the covered entryway, head held high. Steve hurries after her, catching the door as she strides through. 

Inside there’s a wide-open entrance area with a dark grey terrazzo floor, a few plastic chairs and benches dwarfed by the size of the space, and a curved reception desk. As they approach, a thin, blandly handsome middle-aged man appears through a door behind the desk, greeting them with a straight face.

“How can I help you?”

“We’re here to see Billy,” Max says, almost defiantly. When Steve looks at her, he realizes the two of them have edged so close together they’re almost touching.

“Ah, yes.” The man smirks just a little. “I take it you’re Maxine Mayfield?”

“That’s right.”

The man types something on the sleek computer in front of him, then passes Max a lanyard and badge. It has her name on it, and what looks like a school photo. She slips it over her head with an unnerved look. 

“And you are?” the man addresses Steve. 

“Steve Harrington.” 

“And your relationship to the patient?” The guy asks with a slightly raised eyebrow.

The bag of cassettes slips from Steve’s hand, a couple skidding a foot or two across the floor. “Fuck!” He lurches to protect the cookies cradled in his other arm, bends down to try and scoop the fallen tapes one-handed into the bag. Wordlessly, Max takes the tupperware from him so he has a prayer of pulling himself together. “Um, none, really,” he babbles, straightening up. “I just drove her,” jerking a thumb toward Max.

The man clacks away on his keyboard.

“Would you like to accompany Miss Mayfield or wait here?” He asks, nodding toward the seats nearby.

“Accompany,” Steve says quickly.

“Alright then.” The man slides another lanyard across to Steve, already pre-printed with Steve’s name and his senior photo, in which he looks super bummed out. Nope, nothing creepy here. 

“Wait here for a moment. Nurse Rita will escort you to Mr. Hargrove’s room.” He disappears back through the door he came from.

Almost immediately, a woman in a blue nurse’s uniform steps through. She could just as easily be twenty-five or forty. She’s only a couple inches taller than Max, but solidly built, with silky light-brown hair tucked under her cap, and a strange, removed expression, the hint of a smile playing at the corner of her lipsticked mouth.

“Hello,” she says. “Follow me.” She ushers them across the room toward an elevator, which opens with a quiet _whoosh_ at the touch of the keycard she pulls from her breast pocket. 

“How is he?” Max asks as they crowd inside, her elbow bumping Steve’s as they both keep their distance from Rita and her sphinx smile. 

The nurse stares calmly ahead as she presses the button for the third floor, and they start going up, metal groaning softly around them. “Your brother is expected to recover fully from the injuries he sustained in the car crash,” Rita says, and Steve can almost imagine her winking exaggeratedly.

“How is that possible?” he mutters, seeing the arc of that horrible, seething meat-limb, the chunk it ripped out of Billy. 

Nurse Rita goes on: “However, there’s still a lot we don’t understand about his neurological condition, so we don’t know how long it will be before it’s safe to release him.” 

The elevator shudders to a halt, throwing its doors open, and Steve and Max follow Rita down a long, blue-grey hallway, quiet except for the humming and clicking sounds that seem to come from everywhere at once. 

“What are the symptoms of this ‘neurological condition’?” Steve asks.

“Seizures,” Rita says crisply. “Hallucinations. Extreme sensitivity to touch and temperature. Emotional outbursts.”

Long observation windows stretch between the white doors, but they’ve all got panels pulled down over them, except for the one by 312, through which Steve can see a small hospital room, and over by the barred window, an occupied hospital bed. 

It takes a minute for his brain to register the patient as Billy Hargrove, though of course it is. Steve’s first, stupid reaction is a stab of grief for Billy’s awful hair, which for has been buzzed, for some reason, leaving a cap of indeterminate-color fuzz. Billy’s face tilts away, but Steve sees the slope of one eyebrow, dark against pasty skin, the patchy stubble growing on his jaw. There are discolored, bluish patches on his face and neck and arms, running along veins, popping up on the ridges of bones. This guy looks—shucked, his top layer peeled off. 

The room’s too-warm, painted pale salmon pink, dimly lit by the overcast sky outside. Muted chatter fizzes out from the little TV perched by the bed, some infomercial about an exercise machine. Billy breathes in soft gasps, each one sounding sudden, unguaranteed.

He turns his head as they enter, slow like a delayed reaction, and it’s clear he’s drugged to the gills when he looks at them—his eyes are all hazy, (but still blue-blue-blue), and it’s easy to name each emotion that twists up his face: first fear, when the door opens; then relief, heartbreaking relief when Max rushes to his side; then _disgust_ when his eyes land on Steve. His throat works; one of his thickly bandaged hands jerks up over his chest, where electrodes trail up around the dressing, while his other arm waves wildly in the direction of Steve, and the door.

“Harrington. Out.”

“Billy,” sniffles Max. 

“No,” Billy scratches out, kind of cringing away, like he can’t even stand to look at Steve. 

“I’ll go,” Steve says faintly, holding up his hands. He hands the Camelot bag to Max and walks out of the room, arms crossed over his chest.

“You too, Rrratched,” Billy slurs, glaring at the nurse. The name seems unfair, but she’s unconcerned, following Steve into the hallway and closing the door behind them.

By some unspoken agreement, they stand there and watch through the window as Max approaches Billy, laying her little hand on the muscular part of his forearm, above the reach of the gauze. Billy shivers continuously, though he’s covered in blankets up to his chest. The movement draws Steve’s eye to the hole-punched strap hanging from the bed’s side rail—there’s another one dangling by Billy’s bicep. If Steve squints, he might see bruising above Billy’s elbow, but it’s hard to tell with the IV stuck in his arm, with his popping inky veins. 

Rita must track Steve’s gaze, because she tells him, “Your friend’s had a difficult recovery. We’ve had to prevent him from hurting himself and others. But the current treatment seems to be working well, and we hope this visit will help, too.” 

Steve wonders what this “treatment” entails beyond heavy sedation. His hands crawl down into his pockets and curl up there, around the receipt from Camelot (left), and around Billy’s bracelet (right). He thought about wearing it, but he chickened out of making a statement like that. Clearly he was right to hold back. 

Was Billy Flayed when they fucked? It couldn’t be. Steve would have been able to tell. Yeah, Billy was all there, all right, and Steve was too. But they aren’t anymore. 

Billy might not even remember. 

Inside the room, Max holds up the tapes Steve bought until Billy points to one, Steve can’t tell which. Max pulls Billy’s walkman out of the backpack, clicks in the tape, and carefully positions the headphones over Billy’s ears. 

Steve wonders what would have happened if Max’s parents had come here after all. Would they have bought the story? Would it make sense to them that Billy was moved, presumably, from a regular hospital while still in such bad shape? Could they have overlooked these creepy-as-shit vibes?? 

Just as Steve has this thought, a shout rings out from the one of the rooms down the hall, followed by more yelling. And a month ago Steve might have guessed at the language, but now he’s damn sure it’s Russian. There’s a crash from the same direction, and Nurse Rita jolts into action. 

“Excuse me,” she says, already running, paging someone. “We’ve got a code red.” 

Chills break out over Steve’s skin. He glances back into Billy’s room and meets Max’s eyes where she’s perched on the edge of the bed. She squints at Billy for a second, then nods at Steve, beckoning him back into the room. When he’s in, he sees why—Billy’s asleep. Steve can hear the jangle of heavy metal coming through the headphones, over the voices murmuring on the TV—AfterMASH is on, now, which is just a travesty. 

Billy’s mouth hangs open as he gulps in breaths. Steve wishes he’d open his eyes and start yelling. The sight of that slack face hurts. 

“Sorry about that,” Max murmurs. “You know how he is.” 

Steve’s not sure that he does, but he just says, “Yeah,” glad not to be alone in this screwed-up place. “Should we break him out?” he whispers. “She’s distracted by Russians,” he adds, warming up to the idea, itching, suddenly, with the need to do. 

Max waves a hand over the room, at all the wires attached to Billy, the plastic tube jutting out from the side of his chest. “We can’t,” she says. “We have to cooperate.” She looks so grown-up when she says it, Steve feels stunted. 

For a while they just watch Billy sleep, his muscles jerking occasionally. Then the nurse comes back, panting a little. Pink scratch marks rake down the side of her arm.

“I’m sorry about that.” She takes a moment to check Billy over, adjusting the IV in his arm. Maybe he shook it loose when he freaked out over Steve’s existence. Billy makes this little whining grunt when she pushes the needle in that Steve could have done without hearing. “Well, we’d better let him rest.”

“When can we come back?” Max asks, all politeness now, no bravado.

“That’ll depend on Billy,” Rita says cryptically. “But we’ll call you with an update soon.” 

The ride home is mostly silent, both of them tired and pensive. They put on Max’s tape, and Steve decides he likes her music better than her brother’s. Steve stops at a Burger King, buys both of them a Whopper, and ends up finishing Max’s burger when she gets full. He’d eat a whole cow if he could. 

He thinks about driving all this way to see Billy, after he was dead for a week and a half, only to get booted from the room. He laughs once to ease the sting in his chest. “He’s such an asshole,” he says without really meaning to.

“What?” Max startles, but then she seems to get it. “Oh. Yeah. He really is.”

Max lingers in the Caravan when they reach the Hargrove house, rubbing a finger along the ridge of the windowsill. 

“You good?” Steve checks. He doesn’t really want her to go in there. Lets a few crazy thoughts bounce through his head: offer up the guest room, legal adoption. He _is_ technically an adult. 

But Max seems to steel herself. “Yeah.” 

“You call me if you need anything, okay?” Max nods. “You’ve got my number, right?”

“Yeah,” she sighs. “Okay. Thanks, Steve.” She takes her new tape and gets out of the car. 

“Anytime,” Steve says, and means it.

The house is quiet when Steve gets home. “Mom?” he calls out.

He wanders through the foyer, dining room, kitchen, all clean and empty. Wonders distantly if his mom’s taken off. Her car’s in the garage, but it’s there most of the time, so much so that Steve hardly notices it anymore. Steve’s parents usually take his dad’s car when they drive to the airport in Indianapolis. 

But his mom hasn’t left. Steve’s drifting brings him to the sunroom, and he sees the shape of her back in the yard beyond, poised with hands on hips as she surveys her fallow garden, a clipboard tucked under her arm. The Harringtons employ a landscaper, of course, but there’s a patch of land just beyond the pool, marked off with a ring of large rocks, that she uses as she likes, to decompress and experiment and express herself, or whatever. Or she did, years ago, before she decided that saving her marriage took precedence over everything else.

For a while now Mr. Beale has just been pulling weeds from the bare dirt, preserving the spot for whenever Patricia Harrington might return to it. Which is now, apparently. She braces her clipboard on one arm and starts sketching with sure strokes, plotting her next project. Steve hightails it out of the sunroom and sprints upstairs, his stomach aching. 

He throws himself down on his bed, flops around for a while like a fish. He thought it’d settle him, seeing Billy alive and mostly intact, but he feels more agitated than ever. He fishes his stupid token out of his pocket, holds it taut between his index fingers, spins it fast like a wheel. 

_Hermit Crab._

_I think of you every day._

Something snaps and the button clasp slingshots across the room, leaving Steve with nothing but a couple strips of leather, coiled on his chest like two snakes.


	4. GRAVEYARD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note: in this fic, Steve and Robin start working at Family Video in mid-August.

When Steve’s name is called, he’s staring at a painting of an elephant. It’s brown and wrinkled like cracked earth, eyes deep-set, stranded in some foggy place where land and sky blur together. 

“Steve?”

Blinking, Steve pushes up from his chair and crosses the room to meet Dr. Kuhn, who’s posted in the doorway to his office. “Yeah, hi.”

Dr. Kuhn extends a dark, weathered hand for Steve to shake. His palm is warm and dry. “Hello, again.” He smiles, releasing Steve’s hand so he can wave him into the office. “Take a seat.”

Steve drops down onto the couch, brown leather creaking beneath him. Dr. Kuhn seats himself in the matching armchair a few feet away, moving gracefully for a man his size. The doctor scrawls something on a pad of paper and looks up.

“Alright, Steve, how are we?”

Steve shrugs. “Fine, I guess.” He rubs the toes of his sneakers back and forth over the carpet, both the color and texture of oatmeal.

“How’s your sleep? Any better?”

“Um, yeah, a little.”

“So the valium is working for you?” Dr. Kuhn crosses one ankle over the other.

“Well—I guess, yeah. I sleep if I take it. Only sometimes, in the morning, it’s hard to wake up. It reminds me of—” He stops himself. “It feels weird.”

The shrink studies Steve; his eyes are so dark they’re almost black, and strangely soft, and hard to look away from. “What does it remind you of?”

Steve glues his eyes to the fern in the corner instead. “Well, it’s like being drunk.” 

Dr. Kuhn writes something down, his steel pen gleaming. “You said _if_ you take it—how many nights a week would that be?”

“Maybe—two?” Steve shrugs again. “When I get really tired, it seems worth it.” 

A faint sternness comes over Kuhn’s features. “Steve. If you don’t take the medication as directed, you can’t adjust to its effects. Take it every night, and the grogginess should subside after a week or two.” 

Steve grabs a cylindrical orange throw pillow and weighs it in his hands. “Yeah, okay.”

“If you keep having trouble feeling alert during the day, we can look into other options. You do want to sleep, don’t you?”

Steve nods robotically. Sure, he wants to sleep. What he doesn’t want is to be drugged for the next apocalypse.

“So, besides sleeping, how have you been?” Steve shrugs again, and Dr. Kuhn flips through his notes. “How’s the job hunt?”

“Ugh.” Steve rolls his eyes, sinking down on the squeaky couch. “My pal Robin and I are meeting tomorrow to fill out some applications.”

“Ah. Well, good luck. And did you ever try out the, eh, ‘actual babysitting’?” The doc does air quotes, the likeable bastard.

“ _Ugh_.” Steve sinks even lower. “Yes. Once. It didn’t go well.”

“No?”

“Turns out babysitting kids who actually need supervision isn’t my thing at all.” Steve shakes his head. “I’m just grateful that night didn’t end in a trip to the hospital.”

Kuhn chuckles at that. “And how are your friends?”

“Umm.” Steve lays one arm along the back of the couch, fingers stretched toward the little window, through which he can see the Caravan. “They’re okay.” 

“Just okay?”

“Well, uh. We just found out this past weekend that two of the kids are leaving town, moving to Illinois. It’s not for, like, two months, and it’s—good, you know? That family’s been through a lot of shh—uh, crap, in Hawkins.”

“You can curse, Steve.”

Steve huffs a laugh. “They’ve been through some shit. But the kids are all really bummed.”  
  
“And you?”

“Me?” Steve looks up. “Yeah, me too, I guess. I mean—I don’t know those two that well. But their mom is like—” he waves his hand around, then gives up. “It’ll just be weird. And things have already been weird. You know, since the fire.” 

“Weird in what way?”

“Well.” It feels strange to have to explain. “The two girls, they both lost someone. Except—turns out only one of them did.” He winces internally. “One of them, uhh, thought her brother died in the fire, but really he didn’t? But he did, like, crash his car, because his brain is broken, or something. It’s a whole mess.”

Dr. Kuhn raises one greying, bushy eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Yeah, dude was missing for a couple weeks. And, like, this guy’s a real asshole—” he winces before remembering he can curse, “—like, a messed up person, who treated Max and her friends like crap. So I guess the other kids didn’t really get why Max was so upset, and that made her more upset.” 

“Family ties are complicated.” Kuhn nods for Steve to go on.

“I guess. So that’s been hard. And then Billy turned up, and Max asked me to take her to visit him, because her family’s super screwy and like, scared of him. And I go, right? He might be a piece of work, but that doesn’t mean I want him alone and hurt in some creepy facility.” Steve hugs the orange pillow to his chest, hands clenching and unclenching in the faux leather. 

“So you know her brother—Billy?” The sound of Billy’s name in Dr. Kuhn’s light, thoughtful voice catches Steve off guard, knocks loose a helpless laugh. 

“Yeah, I mean, I.” He uncurls one fist to scratch at his jaw. “We played basketball together. Total nightmare, by the way. And then one night he beat the crap out of me.”

“My goodness.” 

“Yeah, told you he was a dick. There was no real reason for it, either. Like, we didn’t have to _go_ there.”

“He sounds like a very unbalanced young man.” Steve meets the shrink’s eyes and they’re sharp, curious. “And still, you’re concerned about him.”

Steve flinches. “I wouldn’t say concerned. I just—I mean, I was concerned about Max.” 

“So you drove her to this facility, to visit.” 

“Yeah. And, surprise, surprise, he was a dick. Wouldn’t even let me in the room, after I drove for an hour, and spent thirty friggin’ bucks on some cassettes, and—” he cuts himself off.

“And?”

“Okay, so—” Steve pushes the pillow down his thighs like a rolling pin, then rolls it back. “So, like, a week before he uh, disappeared, we sort of hung out? And he was still all, rude and scary, but it was actually kind of fun. And now—it’s been a month, and it turns out Max has been visiting him this whole time, every week, and _Jonathan’s_ been taking her. He’ll let Jonathan freaking Byers in his room, but not—”

“This is Will Byers’ brother?” Dr. Kuhn looks very interested now. Steve straightens up. Oh god, he’s been ranting. Damn this man and his hypnotic soulful cow eyes.

“Uh. Yeah,” he replies.  
  
“You don’t like him?”

“No, he’s fine. He’s just, like, this guy.” Steve goes back to rolling the pillow. “Anyway, it’s all fine. Not like I wanted to see that jerk anyway.” 

He wishes he was better at lying.

Dr. Kuhn gives him a sad smile. “There’s nothing wrong with hoping people will surprise us. But it’s best to try and be realistic.” 

—

Steve speeds a little on the drive back from Indianapolis. Lately, he gets itchy when he’s more than a stone’s throw from Hawkins. Always feels like something’s gonna happen.

An empty driveway greets him at home, and there’s no one inside the house either. That’s been the case more often lately, though Mom has stayed stubbornly Hawkins-bound since the 4th; she’s been going to a lot of meetings, fundraisers, et cetera, Steve hasn’t been paying attention. But it’s been good to have some space to himself again. He retreats into the den, where it’s dark and small and quiet, and flops down in front of the TV to watch Body Language. There’s a foxy contestant named Janice whose impassioned miming of the word SHARPSHOOTER kinda does it for him. He considers going upstairs and rubbing one out, but that seems like a lot of energy, so he takes a nap instead.

The room’s dark when he wakes up to the sound of the front door shutting, the clack of Mom’s heels in the foyer. He blinks blearily in the light from the TV—60 Minutes is on. Bor-ing.

“Steve?” Mom calls.

“In here,” he calls back. He lays there in the dark while she clacks through the kitchen and checks the answering machine. The Harrington line’s been hopping since Patricia’s back in town.

She appears, then, in the doorway. “Steve,” she sighs, flicking a lamp on. “Were you napping again?”

“Just watching TV,” Steve lies, motioning to the screen, where some kids are playing Dustin’s dragon game. Huh.

“Ah. So that’s why your hair’s sticking up in the back,” Mom says lightly, reaching over to gently tousle it.

Steve bats her away. “I can’t help it if I pass out watching TV.” 

Mom sighs, reaching over to straighten some trinkets on the hutch by the door. Steve thinks she might argue, but she seems kinda distracted and, like, wired, and she drops it. Steve’s glad. He knows he freaked her out with his whole stuck-in-bed routine after the 4th, and he knows it wasn’t much better when he yo-yo’d to the opposite extreme and was up at all hours. But that was more or less a return to pre-“fire” normal for Steve. She doesn’t need to worry.

“So, the meeting ran late, and I didn’t cook,” Mom says. 

“That’s okay.”

“How about Gennaro’s?”

Steve’s stomach growls. Pizza's never a bad option. “Sure.” 

They take the Continental, the windows flecked with spitty rain on the ride through town. The evening news plays on the public radio station. There’s a sound clip of the interim mayor, Rodney Hill, promising investment in local infrastructure to support small business. Mom has some thoughts about it. They pass the Holloway house, still with flowers and cards and stuffed toys collected on the lawn. Mom has thoughts about that, too.

“This town needs to be made whole,” she says, with conviction.

A surprised sound pops out of Steve. If only she knew!

Gennaro’s is tucked between a health club and a hair salon, an unassuming shopfront with a couple wooden benches on either side of the door. Walking up, Steve spots a Help Wanted sign taped to one of the wide windows. “Oh, rad.” They step through and Steve’s hit with the smell of baking dough, the warm buzz of activity and conversation. 

“It’s been awhile,” he murmurs.

“It has,” Mom agrees. This always used to be _their_ thing, when Dad was out of town. 

They wait in line, step up to the counter and order a large pie stuffed with pepperoni, mushrooms, green peppers and onions. Steve asks the girl working for a couple of job applications, and she wordlessly passes them over. Mom smiles approvingly, and they find a booth by the window. The rain dances over the tops of the cars parked outside; a little kid shrieks from across the restaurant. 

“So,” Mom says, sipping her Diet Coke, “how was Dr. Kuhn?”

Irritation prickles up the back of Steve’s neck, souring his nostalgic vibe. He hates that question. He’s already seeing a psychiatrist to appease his mom—a course of action that’s totally pointless, given the number of state secrets he’s holding—and she wants to invite herself along to his appointments retroactively.

“Fine. The same,” he says. He looks around at the framed Chicago-themed posters on the walls: Buckingham Fountain, the Navy Pier. “Have you talked to Grandma lately?”

Mom lets the topic change happen. “Yes, a couple of weeks ago. She’s doing well. Finally got that ceiling fixed,” she notes with a good-natured eye roll.

Then Mom studies him, her eyes lighting up. “Why don’t we visit her this weekend? We could go for your birthday. Go to the theatre.” She smiles a little. “We’ve never gone on a trip, just you and me.” 

A very young part of Steve blooms open at those words. And it does sound nice. Steve hasn’t seen his crazy grandma in forever, and he likes Chicago. But, somehow, he just can’t.

“I don’t know,” he hedges. “That sounds fun. But I told Dustin I’d help him take a picture to send to Suzie. For their two month anniversary.” The words kinda balk on their way out of his mouth, like they know that sounds absurd. 

“Well, think about it.” Mom swirls her straw around her cup. Then, wonderfully, their number gets called (46); Steve scoots out of the booth to go get their food. “Well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” he tells the pizza as he carries it to their table, grabbing silverware on the way.

“Oh, yes,” Mom agrees, and the demolition begins. 

“I love onions on pizza,” Steve moans. “Dad’s taste buds are broken.” 

“Well, he does eat liver, so that’s a given.” 

They both laugh. This is part of the tradition too, taking shots at Dad while he can’t defend himself. 

“So, what did you do today?” Steve asks in the pauses between bites of his final slice. He’s getting full, but determined to go the distance.

Mom gets this weird, intense look, kind of excited and cagey at the same time. “Well, Steve, I’d been meaning to talk to you.”

“...Okay.”

Mom sets down her fork and knife. “You know I’m on the planning committee for the memorial.” Steve nods, vaguely aware that the Harringtons donated a good chunk of money toward this effort: some kind of permanent memorial on the site of the now-demolished mall. “Well, I’ve been talking to the families, getting their feedback. And the more I hear from them, the more I can’t wrap my head around.”

“What do you mean?” 

Mom’s voice lowers. 

“So, you know Ann Landry lost her daughter, Erin. Nine years old. The Landry’s were at the Fun Fair when little Erin wandered off—they thought she’d run off with some friends.” Mom gets this look on her face: inward, unfamiliar. “What I want to know is, how did a nine-year-old girl get all the way to Starcourt Mall from the fairgrounds? Sure, it’s technically possible, but why?” Mom shakes her head. “And the way Ann talked about it—just cried, that she and her husband were up on the Ferris Wheel while their daughter burned. Blaming herself, like that story isn’t the strangest thing you ever heard.”

Steve’s heart starts beating fast. “I mean, who knows, right? She and her friends probably decided they’d rather be at the mall than some dumb fair.”

“But that’s the thing. She’s not the only person who had no business being anywhere near that mall. For example, tell me why Doris Driscoll, who hadn’t left her house for ten years, just had to shop at nine o’clock at night.”

Steve's mind suddenly rediscovers the fact that his mother graduated with honors in journalism at Northwestern. 

“We already know Starcourt Industries was shady and had its claws in local government. But I think this goes deeper than that.” Mom studies him. “Steve, I know you don’t want to talk about it, but I have some questions about the fire.”

Steve can't speak for a long moment. “Mom.” She watches him. “There’s nothing I can say that you haven’t heard before. Robin and I were cleaning up for the night when we smelled smoke. We used the delivery entrance to get out. There’s a bunch of people who weren’t so lucky.”

“Are you sure you didn’t see or hear anything strange?”

“Yes, I’m sure!”

“I’ll just have to do some more digging, then. I have contacts in Chicago, people who have some experience with cover-ups.”

Oh. _We could go for your birthday._ Yeah, right. Steve grips the edge of the table. “Mom! The town is grieving. The last thing they need is to get sucked into some conspiracy theory.”

“That’s the whole point. There are studies on this—people are most traumatized by disasters when they don’t get justice. These families need the truth to heal.” 

“Mom—” Steve grunts in frustration. “Everyone doesn’t need _you_ to save them.”

She blinks, frowning. “What does that mean?”

“It means that it’s none of your business! Why don’t you fix your own life?”

Mom sits up straight, arms stuck to her sides. She’s silent for a minute. Then: “I don’t know how I raised a son with no interest in anything that goes beyond himself.”

Steve’s ears ring for a long second, as though from a slap. Molten rage gurgles up like a science fair volcano.

“Maybe ‘cause you didn’t raise me!”

Steve’s throat chafes with the force of his yell, and the restaurant goes quiet. People are staring. “Screw this.” He clambers out of the booth, shaking slightly. 

“Steve—”

He doesn’t let her finish. Storms out, angry and humiliated. 

_She doesn’t know shit_ , he thinks as he follows the downtown strip, hands in his pockets. It’s raining steadily now, and water beads on his bare arms. _I try to protect her, and look what I get._ In the back of his mind he’s aware he’s being ridiculous, but it’s too late to turn back now. 

The rain relents briefly as he passes beneath the overhang at Melvald’s. Through the windows he can see Joyce counting down the till, getting ready to go home. Joyce who he thought on some level would always be there, just like the forest surrounding her house. He knows she’s more than earned the right to seek out some peace for herself and her kids and El. But what about the rest of them? 

Steve keeps walking until the shopfronts transition into houses, all settled in for the evening, windows glowing yellow and safe, American flags mounted on the porches. It’s a lie, of course, but those government people are right, creepy as they are. Telling the truth will only bring more chaos.

It’s not long before he’s soaked, water squishing from his shoes with each step. “This is stupid,” he mutters to himself. “You are so stupid.”

A car passes him, slows down, reverses until they’re side-by-side.

“Steve?” someone shouts over the drum of the rain. “You good?” 

Steve stops walking, squints through the rolled-down window. Of course it’s Jonathan Byers.

“Yeah, man,” Steve waves him off.

“It’s pouring. Get in.”

Steve hesitates, but he can’t really argue with that. His clothes squelch as he lands in the seat. “Sorry,” he mutters.

Jonathan doesn’t bother acknowledging the apology. He doesn’t ask, either, about the sequence of events that had Steve stomping through the mud on the side of the road in a downpour. He just asks, “Home?”

“Yeah,” Steve sighs.

The radio plays “Ever Fallen in Love,” jangling over the sound of the rain. Jonathan’s car has a lived-in, almost sweet smell; the interior is tidy but slightly grimy, bags of groceries piled in the backseat. Jonathan’s still wearing his little mailman uniform and he should look stupid but he just looks like Jonathan. 

He seems fine with silence, but Steve’s never been great at that. “So how’s work going?”

“It sucks,” Jonathan admits. “But the pay is good. And moving is expensive.”

Steve makes a noise like he understands this, though he doesn’t. He doesn’t know what it’s like to be eighteen and working to support your family, when he still receives an allowance. Steve feels a jab of hate for Jonathan’s uniform, for the groceries in the back of the car. He bets Jonathan Byers doesn’t yell at his mom. He and Nancy are going to raise some really good, brave kids someday. 

But Steve just asks, “How you doing with all that?”

Jonathan makes a thoughtful sound. “I can’t say I expected to move in my last year of high school. And I’ll miss some people." Steve suspects _some people_ is one very specific person. "But I don't know if I'll miss Hawkins.” 

Steve hums noncommittally. He shifts, uncomfortable and cold, and notices a slip of paper in his seat, half-stuck to his wet butt. He peels it off and takes a look.

“Why do you have a prescription for oxycodone?”

Jonathan looks over in surprise. “Oh, shit, really?” He gets this tired, mildly exasperated look as he puts his eyes back on the road. “Thanks for spotting that. Just stick it up on the dash, if you would. What’s one more stop,” muttering that last part to himself. 

“Uhhh,” says Steve. There’s a story there, but he doesn’t want to ask.

The lights are still on when they get to Steve’s house. “Ugh,” Steve groans. “Thanks, dude.” He climbs out of the car; the rain’s slowed to a steady shower.

“No problem. Go dry off.” Jonathan backs down the driveway.

Steve hopes he can get up to his room without being spotted—he just wants to take a shower and crash—but of course when he reaches the base of the stairs he locks eyes with his mom, who’s on the couch with a book on her lap. 

“Steve,” she says, standing up, closing the book.

“Hey,” Steve forces out.

She comes over to him, stops a few feet away. “You’re all wet,” she says quietly. “Let me get you a towel.”

“It’s fine, Mom, I can get my own towel,” but she’s already on her way up the stairs, where he wanted to be, and he’s left hanging there like something that doesn’t belong.

“Here you go,” Mom says, draping a fluffy cream-colored towel around him and sort of rubbing it along the sides of him. Steve shuffles backwards into the balustrade.

The line of Mom’s mouth tightens. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, me too,” Steve blows out, on a sigh that sounds the same as hers. He’s not sure if he’s lying or not.

“I just want to help people.”

“I know.”

“And I know you want that too. You’re so good with those kids,” Mom offers up.

Steve scoffs. “Yeah, okay.” He helped save every person in this goddamn town, but okay. “Night, Mom.”

He jogs up the stairs before she can touch him again. He showers quick, takes his valium, and passes right out. 

—

The next morning, Steve drags himself up the stone steps and through the front entrance to Hawkins Public Library. He’s pretty sure the last time he was here was with Nancy, back when she thought she could teach him to study. He heads straight for the staircase in the center of the building that leads to the second level, where Robin said to meet ‘cause there’s better lighting and fewer distractions, or so she says.

He jogs up the stairs, hand gliding along the slightly greasy banister, and quickly spots Robin, sitting at one of the round wooden study tables by the windows. 

“It’s too early for this,” Steve says by way of greeting, dropping down into a very uncomfortable chair. 

“It’s ten o’clock in the morning.” Robin glances at the clock on the wall. “Ten-ten, actually, Mr. Tardy.” She pushes a stack of job applications toward him; it looks like she’s already filled out two or three of her own. 

“It’s summer,” Steve protests.

“Actually, for you, it’s not. This is just your life.” 

“Wow, that's so helpful," he snaps.

Robin flinches at his tone, and then looks annoyed. “What’s up with you?”

“Sorry, Rob." Steve sighs, flatting his hands over his face. "I had kind of a shitty night.”

“You want to talk about it?”

Peeling his hands away from his face, Steve looks down at the beat-up tabletop, traces a long scratch with his finger. “My mom’s been asking questions about the fire,” he whispers, and Robin scoots her chair closer to his. “Says it doesn’t make sense why all those people were at the mall that night.”

“It really doesn’t make sense,” Robin remarks, low-voiced as well.

“She’s planning to get in touch with some reporters she knows. I tried to talk her out of it, but she’s like a dog with a bone.”

“Your mom is so cool,” Robin says dreamily.

“Okay, I can see you having a crush on my mom, and I need you to stop.”

“Look, Steve. If there are holes in their story it’s none of our business. Someone was bound to ask these questions sooner or later.”

Steve frowns. “So—what, we just let her do what she’s gonna do?”

“The way I see it, as long as you don’t tell her anything yourself, you haven’t broken any rules. You aren’t responsible for the entire town.” Steve jerks at the echo of what he told his mom last night. “Now, get to work.” Robin taps Steve’s stack of applications with one black fingernail.

“But I’m tired,” Steve whines.

“That’s attractive.”

Steve groans, letting his head drop on the tabletop. Robin’s pen scratches over paper; the clock ticks; Old Man Joe snores on a sofa nearby.

“Old Man Joe’s got the right idea,” Steve grumbles, muffled by the table.

“Old Man Joe doesn’t need a job,” Robin points out. “Do you want to stay broke and bored forever?”

“Oh, yeah, ‘cause twenty hours a week at—” he lifts his head, thumbs through the papers, “—Howie’s Hardware is really gonna light up my life.”

“It could. Maybe your surroundings will rub off on you and you’ll get into woodworking.” 

“Hm. Yeah, that’d be cool.” He snatches a pen from Robin’s open pencil pouch and starts filling out the form.

 _Work Experience._ Scoops Ahoy. June 1985 to July 1985. Duties: scooping ice cream, shop maintenance, customer service. Reason for leaving: mall destroyed by ~~demon flesh monster~~ fire.

 _Special Skills._ ~~Bat wielding~~. ~~Babysitting~~. ~~Punching Russian soldiers~~. Teamwork. 

Steve’s wiggling the pen between his fingers, staring down at the little black box where he’s meant to explain his deep longing to work at Howie’s, when Robin goes, “Hey. Steve.” 

He glances up to find Robin staring hard at a point above his shoulder. “Is that—?” And she reaches up to point.

Twisting around, Steve squints over at the bookshelves behind him. “Is what??” 

Robin takes his head in her hand and swivels it. 

“Oh, shit.” 

Lurking over in the fiction section, at the very end of the first shelf of books, is a tall figure, conspicuous in a pair of dark glasses. Steve wouldn’t recognize him at all if it weren’t for the familiar denim jacket and boots.

“Did you know he was back?” Robin whispers.

“No,” Steve blows out. He thinks about the prescription slip in Jonathan’s car and feels stupid.

Billy moves slowly and stiffly, nudging a book from its place on the shelf, opening it with careful hands to look inside the jacket. On the floor by his feet is a little plastic shopping basket, piled with books.

“Should we say something?” whispers Robin.

Billy perks up, then, like some prey animal, catches them shamelessly staring. The book slips from his fingers and lands on the floor with a thump.

“Hey,” Steve calls across the room. He lifts his hand and waggles three fingers in an awkward wave.

Billy turns on his heel and marches toward the staircase. 

“Wait,” Steve calls again, but Billy just shuffles determinedly down the stairs, his fist white on the banister. He’s gone before Steve even knows what happened. The sight of Billy Hargrove, up and walking around in Hawkins Library, is so out of line with Steve’s expectations he can’t quite catch up.

Robin starts, “Well, that was,” and doesn’t seem to know how to finish. Steve stares at Billy’s plastic shopping basket, left there on the ground.

“Steve, you OK?”

“Uh,” Steve swallows a couple of times before forcibly tearing his attention from the abandoned books back to his prospects at Howie’s. “Yeah, fine.” _I just need a job_ , he prints in the box, then signs the thing and sets it aside, grabbing the next form on the stack. This one’s for a bakery. That’s cool. 

—

It’s a long and sweaty afternoon, trundling from store to store, handing over applications and resumes, fake smiles pasted on for any managers that might be watching. But to both of their surprise, they have jobs by the end of the day. Robin’s a no-brainer, but Steve has no idea how she convinced Keith to hire him. Probably Keith’s just in love with Robin and sensed they’re a package deal, but Steve will take it. 

For the next couple of weeks, Family Video is Steve’s life. It’s the same as when he started at Scoops Ahoy, each day simultaneously endless and fast, as he acclimates to the shape of the store, the genre system, the customer base, Keith. Turns out Steve and Robin owe their employment status to the store’s turnover rate, crazy-high due to Keith’s personality. He’s a snobby dick to customers who ask him for recommendations, and has been known to tear up memberships should his weirdo taste be insulted. His disdain for Steve is intense, and Steve finds himself stuck in the back rewinding tapes more often than not. Meanwhile, Keith worships the ground Robin walks on, constantly asking her for her opinions on obscure films while her subtly disparaging replies fly over his head.

For awhile there, Steve goes home at night and sleeps soundly without the drugs, nights jam-packed with stupid stress dreams about work. (He runs around trying to find their one copy of _Airplane!_ while Keith scoffs, “Blockbuster bullshit.” The store stretches and warps like a labyrinth, coaxing him underground, where old TVs pile in the dust, buzzing with static, a smiling cartoon airplane skipping from screen to screen always out of reach.)

But soon it’s September and Robin goes back to school, working weekends only. And Dustin & Company go back, too; they all seem to get pretty absorbed in the transition to high school, and in soaking up time together before their group becomes fragmented. Steve’s days settle into a dull routine: he rewinds and reshelves videotapes, fills out membership forms, chats with old ladies. Ogles the shiny people in the movie posters that line the walls. (Did Billy mean it, about wanting to act?) Then he goes home and takes too-long naps that leave him wired after dark, mind turning restlessly. He jerks off with his free hand clenched in his sheet, and remembers the feel of a sweat-soaked mullet.

Things stay weird between Steve and his mom. They rarely cross paths, and they talk about nothing of substance. Mom stops asking about his appointments or nagging him about all the naps. She doesn’t mention the fire again, though Steve doubts she’s dropped it. 

In mid-September, Max shocks everyone by auditioning for _The Wizard of Oz_. No one had an inkling she was interested in drama, or even that she could carry a tune, and next thing they know she’s cast as Dorothy. Robin spazzes out about it when Steve sees her at work.

“That's really cool,” he says.

“No, Steve, you don’t get it. Freshmen _never_ get cast as leads. Sure, the hair helped a little, but she really made an impression.”

Steve attempts an impressed noise, but can’t muster a real response. He knows it probably wasn’t Max’s choice to shut him out, but the fact that she’s barely acknowledged him in months does feel kind of personal.

It’s almost October when he sees Billy again.

He’s driving back to Hawkins in the early evening after an appointment with Dr. Kuhn. They were scheduled for four, but the bastard was running behind, so Steve had to sit in the overdecorated waiting room for a good twenty minutes, listening to gentle music and fidgeting himself to death. And when his name was finally called, Kuhn was in some kind of mood, reprimanding Steve for not taking his knock-out pills, and Steve got so frustrated he almost couldn’t speak, contractually unable to explain himself. 

But in the end Kuhn prescribed him something called clonazepam and told him it should relax him enough to sleep, but shouldn’t knock him out like the valium did. Then he went through his list of questions, and Steve told him Family Video was dead boring, but fine. For some reason, the geezer really honed it on that, on Steve’s job and his interests and what he wants to do in the future. Steve told him, “I don’t know. I don’t know.” Now, driving home, he’s sweating, smoking too many cigarettes. It plays on a loop in his head: _I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know_.

He’s so agitated he doesn’t notice until he’s almost to Hawkins that his tank is dangerously low. Just in time, he makes it to the shitty gas station on the edge of town. He breathes out shakily as he slides in front of a pump and turns off the car. “Gas, pharmacy, home,” he tells himself, weirdly desperate-hopeful about that clonazepam. ‘Relaxed’ sounds pretty good right now.

Walking toward the Quick Mart, he spots a figure slumped against the side of the building, and veers over curiously to look. A man huddles by the big metal ice cooler, head between his knees, a half-empty water bottle on the ground beside him. Steve sees dark blond hair, just starting to curl on top; a red vest over a denim jacket; scraped black boots. His heart does a little skip. 

“Billy?” He jogs over without a plan.

Sure enough, Billy’s head snaps up, slitted eyes meeting Steve’s. His face is pale and pinched like he’s trying not to hurl. 

“Fuck off, Harrington.”

On his right cheekbone there's a blot of discolored bluish-grey skin. Like a large birthmark, but dead-looking. A deathmark. 

“Are you okay?”  
  
Billy just glares. Steve eyes the cheap plastic vest, spots a name tag. B-I-L-L-Y.

“Do you work here? Since when?”

“Since today.”

“What are you doing out here?”

“None of your business.” Billy stands up then and something seems to pass through him—his eyes flutter shut and he sways, jerking his arm back to catch himself on the cinderblock wall. Steve jumps forward, gets under his arm. Feels Billy shiver.

“Whoa, man,” Steve says, wrapping his arm around Billy’s ribs. Inside the layers of his vest and jacket and sweatshirt, he feels smaller than he should. Steve pushes his thumb under the jut of Billy’s last rib, taken aback. “Are you ready to be back at work? You just got impaled like three months ago.”

Abruptly Billy plants his feet and shoves Steve away, making him stumble, hissing _Do not touch me_ in a voice like ice. Billy’s hand snakes out and slams Steve back against the wall as he stalks past him and through the employee entrance, kicking away the wedge of wood that kept the door from closing. It falls shut with a bang and a click.

“Jesus,” says Steve. “Fine, asshole.”

But he still needs gas, so after a minute, he goes around to the front of the building and opens the door. It jingles as it shuts behind him. He’s been in here dozens of times, but for the first time he really takes in the harshness of the light, the dingy floor, the listlessness of the tuna cans and pickle jars and single TP rolls on the shelf facing the door. The only other customer is a scrawny old man in a trucker hat poking around the beer fridge. This must be the most depressing place to work in Hawkins, not counting, like, the morgue.

As Steve approaches the counter, snagging a Snickers as he goes, a deep voice says, "Hey, buddy, you good?” A ponytailed mountain of a guy stands behind the cash register, wearing the same red vest as Billy. There’s an unintelligible mutter from Billy, sulking nearby; whatever he says, it ends the conversation.

Steve plunks his Snickers down on the counter and tries (and fails) not to look at Billy, who’s crammed into the corner of the counter area, arms crossed over his chest. “Fifteen on 2,” Steve tells Ponytail Man, whose name tag says Otis. “And a pack of Marlboros, please.”

“Would you grab those for him,” Otis tells Billy, tapping keys on the register.

Steve guesses Otis is training Billy, if today’s really his first day. Steve doesn’t envy Otis that job (except maybe he does). Scowling fearsomely, Billy grabs at a pack of cigarettes on the wall behind them, but it takes him forever to get a grip on it. They all stand there in awkward silence long after Steve has paid, Billy’s fingers scratching ineffectually over the paper carton. When he finally gets a hold of it, he flings it down so hard on the counter it bounces off and hits Steve’s chest. Then Billy goes back to his broody pose from before, tucking both hands under his arms.

“Great seeing you too,” Steve tells him flatly. “Thanks, Otis.” He takes his Marlboros and his Snickers and goes, just as the old man lurches up with a six pack.

—

  
Steve tells himself he isn’t going to go back. Not for Billy, anyway. He’ll go back for gas if he has to. That’s three times rejected, now, and Steve actually can take a hint.

Only maybe he can’t. He lasts three days before he goes sniffing around. He’s not sure if he’s lucky or not that Billy never seems to be working when he stops by, buying gas and cigarettes and a lot of junk food he doesn’t need. Maybe Billy quit, since he clearly isn’t well. Maybe they fired him for throwing things at customers. But either way, the disappointments only fuel the fire of Steve’s irrational need to see him, to touch that dead spot on his face, to know in his bones that Billy survived.

Then, two weeks later, on a Saturday, the Byers leave town. Steve has to work, so he doesn’t get to see them off, but the remaining four kids come to the arcade afterward, to take their minds off things, he guesses. Robin’s on break when they roll up, the boys on their bikes, Max on her skateboard. Through the window, Steve watches them dismount, talking soberly to each other. Lucas hugs Max—they’re on-again—but Steve can see Max’s face over Lucas’ shoulder, and she looks actually distraught, but far away, also, her eyes filled with a strange longing. After a moment she pulls away and the two of them follow Mike out of view, in the direction of the arcade entrance.

The door dings as Dustin pops into the video store. “Hey, buddy,” Steve says, taking in Dustin's dejected posture.

“Hey Steve.” Dustin folds himself over the counter, bottom lip stuck out. His hand inches toward the candy.

“You still gotta pay for that.”

Dustin picks up his curly head in affront. “Steve. I’m despondent.” 

“I can see that. But I’m gonna get the pink slip if I keep giving you free shit.” 

Dustin droops again, staring down at his folded arms. “Man, everything’s changing.” He pauses. “Joyce said to tell you bye. And to call.” 

Steve’s touched. “Tell you what. You can have my free rentals this week. Just keep it on the down-low.” Steve’s supposed to be using the free rentals “to get better at your job” (to quote Keith).

“You’re a treasure, Steve-o.” 

After work, Steve drives aimlessly for hours, stuck in a slow-moving panic as it hits him that he’s now the oldest person in Hawkins who knows what’s going on. _God,_ he thinks, _we’re so fucked!_ At night the town is full of vague, menacing shapes. What’s gonna crawl out of that cornfield? Descend from the tops of the trees? Soak up through the floorboards?

It’s after one when he finally stops, out of gas. For once, he didn’t even mean to end up on this side of town, but here he is, alone with the road and the trees. The Quick Mart appears like a fluorescent beacon.

The lot is deserted, no cars parked at the other pump or along the side of the building, except for the rusted pickup that’s been there as long as Steve can remember, getting swallowed by briars and weeds. Steve would think the place was closed but for the red neon letters that wink at him one by one, O-P-E-N, as he approaches.

Then a figure moves through that lit-up box like an actor on a huge TV. Steve watches for a moment as Billy Hargrove fiddles with a coffee machine, his broad back to Steve. Finally he trudges back to the other side of the store, disappearing from view.

The jingling bell heralds Steve’s entry. Over the racks of peanuts and gummies and jerky, Steve can see Billy’s shorn head, framed against a backdrop of multi-colored cigarette packs. For an instant their eyes meet; then Billy’s flick down, dismissive. Like Steve’s no one.

Steve turns away, trailing his fingers over the grainy newspapers stacked by the door. On the front page of the Hawkins Post is a picture of the stone block installed just last week on the former site of Starcourt Mall, etched with the names of the Mind Flayer’s victims.

There’s faint music playing, something from the 50s, a guy crooning for his “little girl.” The coffee maker gurgles like it’s having a fit. Steve drifts a circuit of the tiny aisles, breathing in the smell of citrus cleaning solution and burnt coffee. He grabs a honeybun, a Slim Jim. Keeps on grabbing items without noticing much what they are, drawing slowly closer to the counter.

Billy leans heavy against it, eyes trained on the book he’s reading. The lighting isn't kind to him, casting deep shadows under his eyes and cheekbones. He looks marginally more alive than the last time Steve saw him, but still pretty ghostly, with his blank eyes and ashy complexion. The beard isn’t too bad, but it does give him a look of vagrancy. He wouldn’t look out of place hopping a freight train. Yeah, Steve would watch that movie. 

The sudden absence of noise from the coffeemaker feels profound. Steve jerks into motion, stumbling over to dump snacks all over the scratched chipboard counter. Billy curls his lip when a tube of Pringles rolls and hits his elbow.

“One sec,” says Steve. “I’m gonna grab some coffee.” He jogs back over to the coffee machine, one pot waiting on a warmer on top while a fresh one steams inside. Steve pours some of the fresh coffee into a styrofoam cup and tips eight sugars in, tearing the little pink packets two at a time. He stirs it all up with one of those skinny black straws while he makes his way back to the register.

“Okay. Uh. I need ten on 2. And all this.”

Billy lays his open book facedown on the counter; the ancient-looking cover says _The Great God Pan and the Inmost Light_. That’s when Steve sees Billy’s hands. They look like he shoved them into a paper shredder, gouged all the way up to the wrists, pink and webbed with new skin. Steve tries not to stare as Billy seizes items one by one and punches numbers into the register, slow and clumsy. His typing becomes more and more agitated as Steve watches, like he keeps messing up and starting over. Poor guy must have nerve damage or something like that. 

There's a handwritten sign taped above the counter: CASH ONLY. Steve scrambles to think of something to say. He itches to reach out and touch, make Billy look at him. 

“Oh! And a pack of Marlboros.”

Billy reaches behind him and smacks the cigarettes down on the counter. At least he seems to have that motion down. He smashes a few more buttons and then says, “Fifteen sixty-three.”

Steve panics. “Oh, and…” He grabs a grubby banana from the wire bowl beside the register.

“No.”

“What?”

“No. Fifteen sixty-three, please.” Billy reaches over, plucks the banana from Steve’s hand and puts it back in the bowl.

“What if I’m low on potassium?”

“I don’t care. Cough up the money or leave.”

Steve feels the corner of his mouth twitch. “You’re gonna cheat your employer out of revenue just ‘cause you don’t want to deal with me?”

Billy gives him a flat look.

“Come on, man,” Steve sighs, suddenly earnest. “Why’re you avoiding me?”

Billy huffs, left hand going to grip his book, bending it. Isn’t that a library book? “Yeah, Harrington, after everything, I’m specifically avoiding you.”

“Come on, cut the shit. Don’t you, I don’t know… don’t you think it might help to talk to someone else who’s been in it? Someone your age. I don’t think I realized how bad I needed that until Robin got pulled into it.”

Crickets.

“You know, Robin Buckley? Worked with me at Scoops, total drama geek, always got a band-aid stuck to her somewhere?”

“Nope,” Billy says.

“She’s in your grade! You had four classes together last year. Self-involved much?”

A joyless smirk curls on Billy’s face, his first real expression since this conversation started. “It’s sweet that you talk to your girlfriend about me.”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Steve grumbles, tired of having this conversation with everyone he knows.

“Not for lack of trying, I’m sure,” Billy sneers.

It’s dumb, but that stings. “It's not like that.”

“Whatever. Are you gonna pay for this shit or not?”

Steve sighs, pulling out his wallet. He pays with a ten, five ones, and three quarters. Billy snatches the money from him, gives him back a dime and two pennies. His fingers fumble into Steve’s as he passes over the coins.

“Thanks,” says Steve. He slips the change, barely warm, into his pocket.

Billy nods, sweeping Steve’s purchases into a plastic bag with a yellow smiley face. He looks so tired. Steve takes the bag. Billy reaches into his pocket, pops a piece of gum into his mouth, and goes back to his book. Steve stands there and twitches for a sec, sipping his over-sweet coffee. He knows he’s already dragged out this sad excuse for an interaction _way_ too long, but…

“Hey, so, how late do you work?”

Billy chews. Doesn’t look up, but finally grunts, “Six.”

“Damn. Graveyard shift.” Steve feels creeped out just thinking about standing alone in this store for the rest of the night. “Wait, isn’t it a school night?”

“No,” Billy says, staring at his book without moving his eyes.

“There a teacher workday or somethin’?”

“No.”

“What, so you just didn’t go back?”

“What can I say,” Billy drawls, gesturing carelessly at the store with his free hand. “I’ve found my calling.”

“Oh, yeah, sweet gig you’ve got here.” Steve nods sarcastically. “Jesus, dude.” He looks around at the cramped shop, stares out into the dark, empty lot outside. Something occurs to him. “How did you even get here?”

Billy looks at him.

“Your folks give you a ride?” Steve thinks about the fact that neither Billy’s dad nor stepmom ever took Max to see him while he was hospitalized. Billy just raises an eyebrow. “Oh my god, did you _walk_ here??”

“Damn, Harrington, mind your own beeswax,” Billy says after a moment.

“Dude, that’s, like, five miles at least.”

“Helps me keep my girlish figure,” Billy quips.

“You’re telling me you’re walking on the outskirts of town, in the night and early morning, for hours, every day.”

“What’s it to you?”

“Just—look at you, man! That’s nuts!”

Billy glares. “Shut up.”

Steve looks at his watch. It’s one-thirty-five. “I can come back and give you a ride. I don’t really sleep at night anyways. Wouldn’t be a problem.” Steve has a really strong urge to _not_ have Billy wandering alone in dark, unpopulated areas, even if it means damning his sleep schedule to hell.

But Billy doesn't even think about it. “Hell no.”

“Why not?” Steve’s getting exasperated. “What is your problem? Is it—” he hesitates, then goes for it anyway: “Are you mad because I hit you with my car?”

Billy’s face goes totally blank. “What?” He says it like Steve’s lost his mind.

“Um, in the parking lot, at the mall? You were—the Mind Flayer was gunning it toward Nancy in the Camaro, like you were gonna hit her. I didn’t know what else to do, so I rammed into you, to knock you off course.”

All Billy says is, “Good.”

“I mean, yeah, it’s good that you didn’t kill Nancy and the others. Or, you know, that the Mind Flayer didn’t,” Steve hurries to say. “But, dude. I know you loved that car.”

Billy holds his gaze, strangely open. A wrinkle forms between his eyebrows. “Who the fuck cares?”

Oh, man. Suddenly Steve feels like he needs some kind of degree to be having this conversation.

“I—I care,” he stammers, and cringes immediately.

And there on Billy’s face is the same look of disgust he had in that hospital room. Steve feels his face heat up, embarrassed and hurt and angry and trying not to be any of those.

“Okay. Is all this”—he motions a circle around Billy’s face—“because you sucked my dick?” 

Billy’s eyes go panic-wide. His gaze darts around, though there’s obviously no one here, then zeroes in on Steve, electric-blue and furious.

“Watch your mouth,” he hisses, all tensed like a bear. He almost looks like himself.

Steve holds his hands up. “Sorry, sorry, look, all I’m trying to say is, it’s fine if you don’t wanna—again. It was a one-time thing, you know? I mean, I’m into chicks,” he giggles nervously. “I just want to be friends, man.”

“I just want you to fuck off and die.”

Steve’s mouth drops open.

“What?"

Billy grabs his book and holds it between them like a shield. After a few seconds, Steve turns around, bag in one hand and coffee cup in the other, and walks out of the store. What else is there to do?

—

It’s Saturday again, so Robin’s working. These are the good days, when Steve isn’t stuck here by himself with Keith, getting blasted with cheeto breath and shit on for his complete lack of interest in B horror flicks. 

On days like today, there’s a nice rhythm between them, trading off manning the counter and rewinding videos in the back, exchanging sympathetic looks when one of them is forced to argue basic arithmetic with some asshat who doesn’t want to pay their late fees. Steve doesn’t even mind how Robin laughs at him when he forgets to cover the kettle in the popcorn machine, and popcorn sprays out of both sides, hitting him repeatedly while he scrambles to turn it off. It’s pretty funny, and the honking sound Robin makes when she really gets going is even fucking funnier.

Of course, this is the moment when the kids decide to show up. It’s all four of them today, which is kinda unusual. They still look sad and off-kilter, but Dustin chuckles when he spots Steve, heading straight for the counter. “Still fighting with the popcorn machine, huh, buddy?” He stretches across the counter and picks a popped kernel out of Steve’s hair, and then eats it.

“Gross,” says Steve.

“And just when they’d started to reach an understanding,” Robin laments theatrically, wiping tears from her eyes.

Steve sighs, “I’ll go get the broom,” and ducks into the back.

When he returns, Robin and Dustin are heatedly discussing _The Goonies_ , Mike and Lucas are deep in the sci-fi section, and Max is standing in the middle of the store, by the gumball machine, looking lost. Her eyes lock with Steve’s.

“Hey, Max,” he calls.

Max comes toward the counter a little hesitantly. “Hey, Steve.”

“Long time no see.” Steve winces when the words slip out way more bitter than he meant them. “How’s the play going?” he covers.

Max’s anxious expression clears a little at that. “It’s good.”

Steve nods. “Robin says you’re amazing.”

Max actually blushes, glancing over to where Robin’s now ringing up a family of three, while Dustin commends them on their selections. Then Max seems to shake herself, turning back to Steve. “Um, so, I have a favor to ask."

Steve starts sweeping popcorn into a pile. “Shoot.”

“You’ve probably heard that Billy’s home.” Steve nods. “Well, he has weekly appointments on Wednesdays in Fort Wayne. And he doesn’t have a ride.” When Steve glances at Max, she’s fidgeting with her sleeve.

Oh. “You mean now that Jonathan’s left town.” Steve dumps out the dustpan into the trash can beneath the counter.

“I mean... yeah,” Max sighs.

“And you want me to take him?” Steve grabs a paper towel and wipes some oil off the counter. “The dude hates my guts.”

“He doesn’t,” Max insists. “He’s just ashamed.”

“He told me to fuck off and die.” 

Max makes a low, frustrated noise. “Look, Billy’s having a really, really bad life right now. He says a lot of things, trust me.” Her face pinches up with remembered hurt, and Steve doesn’t like that at all. “We just have to ignore him, and help him.”

“We?”

There’s a challenge in Max’s gaze.

Steve sighs. “Why’s Billy working already, anyway? He looks like he’s gonna keel over.” It’s embarrassing how much Steve worries about it, but he can’t seem to contain the feeling.

Scowling, Max mutters, “Why do you think? Neil says he was taking up space.”

Steve whistles low. "Aw, jeez."

“He won’t ask himself,” Max continues. “But he’s really got to go. I’m scared they might just kidnap him if he doesn’t show—”

Steve extends a hand across the counter, not quite touching her. “When did you say this was?”

“Wednesday. The appointment is at noon, so maybe pick him up at, like, ten thirty? Just to be safe.”

Steve works evening that day, so they should be able to make it work, unless Billy’s appointment takes freaking forever. “I’ll be there.”

“Great. Okay. Thanks.” Max gives him a little smile and then turns away.

Steve doesn't hear a single thing said to him for the rest of his shift.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [end credits](https://open.spotify.com/track/0LMmCYr1grtBC0nRO2MxDf?si=UPkTexbNSamFQzKwziRoNw)  
> We'll see a LOT more of Billy in the next chapter, so hang in there! Thanks so much for reading this mess!!


	5. MILKSHAKE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was mostly written before I posted the first one, so I'm able to update sooner than usual! I'm so excited to finally get to share this with you.
> 
> A warning: this chapter gets into some of the ED stuff in the tags. There are discussions of weight (no numbers), disordered eating patterns, and value judgments about certain foods. Bodies aren't objects to be perfected or thrown away, and there's no such thing as good or bad foods, but some of us don't know that yet. Take care <3

Before Steve knows it, it’s Wednesday morning, and he’s pulling on a pair of light wash jeans and a windbreaker, teal and navy and white in a pattern of overlapping triangles. He scrutinizes himself in the mirror until he looks like a clown, ditches the windbreaker, replaces it with a classic, long-sleeved maroon polo with white stripes. He still doesn’t feel right, but he tells himself one outfit change is enough. He’s the last resort to drive Billy to an unavoidable doctor’s appointment. In no way, shape, or form is this a date.

Right on time, he rolls up to the house on Cherry. There are no signs of life—no cars in the driveway, no surly boys smoking out front. He pulls into the drive and sits there with the engine running for a minute, but no one appears. So he cuts the engine and sits there for another minute, then two, fingers tapping on the wheel and the dash and his knees.

“Jesus Christ.” He guesses Billy’s getting ready inside, lost track of time. Or lost track of fucks to give, more likely. So he gets out of the car, walks up to the house, and raps on the door. Rings the doorbell. Twice, three times, with nice long pauses between, and a good bit of swearing.

Annoyance becomes anxiety, and Steve starts to pound on the door.

“Billy??” he shouts. “You in there?” What if the dickhole fell in the shower and broke his dumb head? Steve tries the doorknob but it’s locked. He paces around the porch, intermittently yelling and banging on things, but the minutes tick by and still nothing happens.

“Fuck,” he sighs. He’s tired already, too keyed up last night to go to bed on time, and he wants to go home and fall asleep to one of the confusing black-and-white movies Robin recommended. But he told Max he’d do this, so he won’t leave until he’s tried everything. He walks around the perimeter of the house, peeking in the windows, but he can’t see much. Finally he comes around to a back door flanked by old flower pots stuffed inside each other, a grass-flecked lawnmower, a little gnome with a flaked-off nose. The door opens when Steve tries the knob.

“Billy?” he calls again, creeping through the small, dim kitchen, eerily silent and blue, on the wrong side of the sun. “It’s Steve! I’m here to take you to the doctor!”

He steps into the hall, spots the door which must belong to Max, with the Wizard of Oz show poster proudly displayed next to a drawing—Will’s, Steve thinks—of Max in a tunic and cape, a dagger in her belt. Steve has to smile.

No decoration on Billy’s door beside it. Steve knocks, only to find it ajar, yawning open at the touch of his fist.

At first he thinks the room’s empty, sees nobody on the stripped-down bed. Then he looks to the left of him, catches sight of the low brown couch in the corner, and the dark lump curled up on it like a big shrimp, pressing into the seam of the couch like it wants to burrow inside. One leg sticks out from the quilt-wrapped bundle, hanging over the side of the couch; a toenail skims the rug through the hole in Billy’s sock.

“Jesus,” Steve mutters, looking away. The air in the room clogs his head like muck from the bottom of a lake. The place is a wreck, a whole new mess laid on top of the old one. The beer cans and cigarette butts are being crowded out by pill bottles and tubes of ointment, half-full mugs and cups. There are clothes flung over the weight machine in the corner, a sheet thrown over the full-length mirror. A faint scent of vomit.

Steve turns back toward the couch, steps closer. He can see where Billy’s walkman has tumbled to the floor, headphones clinging precariously to the side of the couch. On the mantle above is a scatter of cassettes; Steve recognizes the ones he bought for Billy in July.

“Hey,” he says finally, not yelling but not quiet either. “Billy! Wake up!”

Not even a twitch. Billy’s head is covered, the quilt too thick and the room too dim to make out signs of breathing. Steve is struck again by the paranoid thought that Billy’s died in here, OD’d maybe on some of those pills, that Steve’s standing here staring at a corpse. It propels him forward, to crouch down at Billy’s side, grab his shoulder and shake it.

“Billy, wake up!!”

There’s a great gulping sound, as from a victim of a near-drowning, and an elbow smashes into Steve’s nose. He topples backward on his ass, squawking, “Oh Christ!”

In case anyone’s wondering, Billy’s still fucking strong!

The guy’s scrambled to the far end of the couch, half-tangled in his blanket, limbs going everywhere. The manic look on his face does something to Steve, paired with the shock and pain of his busted nose; fight-or-flight kicks in, and he scoots back too, clutching his nose, until his back hits Billy’s boxspring. Blood slips through his fingers onto the dingy rug.

Billy’s wide, wet eyes fix on a point above Steve’s head. Steve twists himself around to look, but there’s nothing to see but the red-tinged sunlight leaking in through the covered window. Billy’s chest heaves as he struggles against the quilt, weird hiccups clicking in his throat, like he’s trying to talk but he can’t. He’s got red stripes on his face from the corduroy. 

“Hey,” Steve says through his hand. He shoots for soothing, but the nasally whine doesn't help. “Hey Billy, it’s me, Steve Harrington. I’m here to take you to the doctor. You’re, uh, you’re safe, alright?”

Billy’s stare wavers, drops to Steve’s level, comes into focus. He gasps, shudders; but little by little, his breathing slows down, and his jerky motions still. Staring all the while straight into Steve’s eyes.

“What the fuck, Harrington,” he breathes, voice like sandpaper.

Steve looks away, sort of shrugs. There’s blood on his pants and he feels like he’s falling. “I’m gonna go deal with this. You get dressed. We should have left”—a glance at his watch—“six minutes ago.”

He gets to his feet and stumbles into the hall, a little unsteady. In the tiny bathroom, he leans over the sink, pinching the bridge of his nose. Damn, Billy got him good.

Once the bleeding has slowed, Steve sticks some rolled up toilet paper in each nostril and wanders into the kitchen in search of ice. He wraps a few cubes from a tray in the freezer in a borrowed dish towel and holds the bundle to his tender nose, then cautiously returns to Billy’s room. Billy hasn’t moved, looks stranded there on the couch in his lived-in sweats, knees pulled up to his chest, staring at a spot on the floor. Before Steve can say anything—they’re now eleven minutes late—Billy grunts, “You’re in my house.” 

“Uh, yeah. I’m taking you to the doctor, and you didn’t answer the door. What was I supposed to do?” Well, maybe not break and enter. Though there was no breaking involved. Does this count as breaking and entering?

Billy just stares at him. Then, “Max,” he hisses. “That little bitch.”

“Don’t call her that,” Steve scolds. “She—what. She didn’t tell you?” Then he has an ah-ha moment. In retrospect, this was really obvious.

“No,” Billy confirms. He closes his eyes, fists his hands in the blanket. “I’m not going.”

“Dude,” Steve says. “You’re going.”

“Make me.”  
  
Steve would rather it didn’t come to that. “Come on, man. Don’t you wanna make sure you’re, I dunno, healing up okay?”

“Not especially.”

“Max said she’s scared they’ll abduct you if you don’t show.”

“Like I give a shit,” Billy shrugs. But his voice wavers.

“No? Well, she does, douchebag. Do it for her, if you don’t care about yourself. Now,” he taps his watch. “We’re almost fifteen minutes late. Get dressed or I’ll drag you there in your jammies.”

That last comment doesn’t go over well. But Steve does cajole him into pulling on some jeans and leaving the house. Steve thinks Billy’s just too dazed to remember to be an asshole. Though he seems to be recovering.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he says when he sees the Caravan.

“Yeah, yeah, save your breath, I’ve heard it all.” Steve gets in the car and fastens his seatbelt. “Get in, we’re late!”

Billy pulls open the passenger door. He holds up a finger. “I get full control of the stereo.”

“Fine, whatever.”

Billy gets in.

He’s on it as soon as Steve starts the car, gum smacking in his mouth as he flips through stations with awkward stabs of his finger. He catches on something suitably obnoxious and then turns it up till Steve’s ears bleed, rendering conversation impossible. Steve grits his teeth and drives, thoroughly martyred.

At a stoplight, Steve pulls out a cigarette and lights up, the waning adrenaline from the elbow to the face and Billy’s subsequent episode leaving him sleepy. He feels eyes on the side of his head and turns to find Billy staring at the cigarette in his hand, nostrils flared.

“You want one?” Steve offers, sort of brandishing it in an attempt to communicate over the clamor of the radio. Billy glares at him. “Is that a yes? A no?” Billy turns away, aggressively chewing his gum. Steve gives up.

About half an hour in, they pass into a dead zone and the radio erupts into screaming static. When seconds pass and Billy makes no move to change it or cuss it or anything, Steve looks over to find him staring blank-faced at the road ahead. He looks so fucking soulless it sends a shudder through Steve’s entire body. He reaches over and shuts the radio off, and Billy jerks at the sudden change in volume.

“Full control,” he mutters, blinking.

“Dead zone. Don’t get your panties in a twist.”

Billy scoffs, turning to stare out the window.

“Sooo,” says Steve a second later, desperate to somehow stop Billy from sinking back into whatever terrifying void lurks behind his eyes. “You work last night?” 

Billy grunts.

“I guess if you got off at six, you couldn’t have had more than a couple hours to crash. No wonder you were dead to the world.” 

Billy snorts. It says a lot that Steve finds these nonverbal responses encouraging.

“So, graveyard shift at the gas station, huh? What’s that like?”

There’s no response for a long moment, but then Billy says, “It’s a job.”

“Yeah, I get that. I’m so bored at Family Video, but it’s a paycheck, right?”

Billy grunts again.

“Must be different, working at night, though,” Steve goes on. “You get any weirdos coming in?”

“Yeah, sometimes there’s a guy who won’t shut up and leave you alone,” Billy says pointedly. Steve grins.

“Oh, that must be so hard for you.” He shoots Billy a look of mock sympathy. “Back when I was at Scoops, I had to deal with some pretty annoying customers, too.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. There was this one guy who always came in half-naked, waggling his tongue at me like a maniac. Really should have called the cops, but I just had to find out what boring-ass ice cream flavor he’d order that day.”

For a second there Steve worries he might get smacked. But when he risks a glance Billy’s way, he sees something crazy happen: that fierce face crumbling into laughter. All young and chagrined and alive in the blink of an eye. Steve just has to look for a sec, starts laughing too as he turns back to the road.

“Sounds like an asshole,” Billy wheezes.

“‘Asshole’ doesn’t even cover it.”

“You’re something, Harrington.”

“Call me Steve.” 

Billy stops laughing.

“We’re not in high school anymore,” Steve points out, though he still wonders why Billy isn’t. Is it so crazy, that they could just talk to each other like normal people?

Billy stares at the trees blurring by and doesn’t say anything else.

—

Fort Wayne Neurological Center is as remote and creepy as ever. Billy lingers in the car for a long moment after Steve cuts the engine.

“Guess we better get this over with,” Steve says finally, unbuckling his seatbelt.

Billy’s head whips around. “You’re staying out here.”

“In the goddamn Twilight Zone? No way.”

Surprisingly, Billy doesn’t object again, just silently climbs out of the car and heads toward the entrance, Steve trailing behind him. The same enigmatic middle-aged man greets them at the reception desk, smirking his same barely perceptible smirk. Billy won’t wear the lanyard, holds it in his fist instead. He’s stiff as a board as they follow Nurse Rita to an examining room. Steve thought surely he’d insist Steve wait at reception, but he doesn’t say a word, and neither do either of the staff.

This room is stark white and filled with whirring machines. Steve plunks himself down in a chair and wishes for a magazine or even a crossword (though he really sucks at them), anything to do but watch the nurse poke at Billy. She runs through all the typical checkup stuff—weighs him, takes his temperature and blood pressure, checks his pulse. Then she makes him breathe out as hard as he can into a tube that’s hooked up to a whole bunch of nonsense. She sticks a needle in his arm—Billy barely reacts—and draws four large vials of blood, then goes and gets him a paper carton of apple juice, which he ignores. After that, Rita leaves the room, and it gets really quiet.

Steve takes the opportunity to pull the spikes of bloody toilet paper out of his nose and toss them in the conveniently placed trash can. “Are you going to drink that?” he says after a minute, pointing at the juice box.

Billy gives him a withering look.

“...Can I have it?” He’s actually parched as shit.

Billy says nothing, which Steve takes for a yes.

The door opens, and Rita reappears, followed by a tall, stubbly man in a lab coat. “Hiya, Billy,” the guy says. Billy grumbles something under his breath. “Hello,” the man says offhandedly to Steve. Steve lifts his hand in a half-hearted wave.

As if he knows the drill, Billy lays back on the padded examination table, and the technician starts drawing little plus signs all over Billy’s head and forehead with a red marker. Steve thinks, _the hell?_ Billy looks miserable but resigned as the man swabs at each spot with some kind of cleaning solution and then sticks electrodes all over Billy’s head, spiking his hair like a hedgehog.

Meanwhile, Rita approaches Steve and hands him a jiggly ice pack. “Let’s take a look at that nose.” Businesslike, she presses her cool fingertips to the sides of his nose, tilts back his head to peer into his nostrils. “Hm. The bone is cracked, but it should heal on its own. Keep putting ice on it, and take aspirin.”

“Yeah, you got some?”

Rita nods, crossing the room and reaching into a drawer. Steve washes the pills down with a hearty squeeze of apple juice, and Rita leaves the room.

Over on the examination table, Billy’s whole head has been wrapped up in thick layers of gauze. He stares determinedly at the ceiling, but Steve can’t help watching the process unfold, confused and fascinated. The stubbly man flashes a light in Billy’s face, tells him to breathe deeply, and finally, covers him with a blue blanket and turns off the light. Steve sucks the last droplets of backwash out of the juice box and watches as Billy’s chest rises and falls in the dark, and Steve starts to nod off in the chair.

When he wakes up he doesn’t know how much time has passed. The lights are back on and the technician is pulling electrodes off Billy’s head, washing his hair with a small basin of water, drying it with a towel. Billy looks barely conscious as the man takes his leave, giving Billy’s shoulder a quick squeeze, telling him, “Dr. Nomura will be with you soon.”

“Well that was something,” Steve says after a while, switching the ice pack to the other side of his nose.

Billy’s sitting up cross-legged on the table, blinking sleepily and rubbing at his arms. His hair is a mess. _He’s_ a mess.

“Wish they had some magazines in here,” Steve tries again a while later.

This time Billy’s grunt is vaguely agreeable.

“Or just like some posters or something to look at. I’m so bored.” 

A derisive snort punches out of Billy, who’s still hugging himself tight. “Try being stuck here for a month and a half, then talk to me about boredom.”

Steve works hard to conceal his excitement that Billy’s shared anything at all of his inner life. He lets only a whistle escape. “Must have sucked.”

“Oh, it sucked ass,” the words come out fast and sharp, “I had to beg them to give me books. I read, like, fifty.” 

“I don’t think I could even name fifty books.” 

Billy looks at him then, with this wry little glance that makes Steve’s breath catch. “You don’t say.” 

Steve leans all the way over and flicks him on the forehead, thrilling at the brief look of cross-eyed disgruntlement on Billy’s face. Then remembers himself and leans back real quick before the now-scowling Billy can bite him. “You’re not the first person to call me dumb, you know.”

“And I won’t be the last.”

“Yeah, whatever. So what’s your favorite book?”

Billy’s eyebrows go up for a sec, but then he looks away. “You wouldn’t know it anyway.”

“So? Tell me the whole plot. I’m that bored.” 

Billy opens his mouth, probably to say something mean, but he’s cut off by the arrival of a slender woman in a white coat, with chin-length, poofy hair and square glasses.

“Hello again, Billy.” She shakes Billy’s hand, then turns to Steve. “And you’re Steve.”

“Uh. Yes.” Steve surrenders his hand to her pinchy, tight handshake.

“Alright, Billy, let’s take a look at you.”

When the doctor makes Billy take off his shirt, Billy’s eyes find Steve’s, glaring daggers. Steve holds his hands up in surrender, angles his body away and averts his eyes, but he can’t help just a tiny peek, once the shuffling sounds of clothes being removed have ceased. He only gets the most general impression of what’s going on with Billy’s torso, doesn’t dare more than a brush of the eyes. But the scars look pretty bad.

Steve leans back in his chair, slowly crumpling and uncrumpling the empty juice box as the doctor listens to Billy’s heart and lungs, presses on his abdomen, examines his scars. After a while she lets him put his shirt and jacket back on, so Steve can stop pretending not to be here.

“Well, Billy, you seem to be doing well. We’ll have to see how your bloodwork comes back, but your lung function is good. Though it seems the accelerated healing is, well, decelerating. Perhaps as the alien compounds work their way out of your system.” For a second, Dr. Nomura seems to get lost in her head. “However, I’m concerned that you’ve lost weight,” she continues, brows drawn. “It seemed like we were moving in the right direction. What changed?”

Billy stares at his lap, shrugs like a child.

“Are you eating?”

His gaze snaps up then, rolls skyward. “Yeah, I’m _eating_.”

Dr. Nomura is unmoved. “Tell me what you ate yesterday.”

“What, everything?”

“Yes.”

Billy glowers at the floor, notched eyebrow twitching in a way that might be funny if it didn’t trigger Steve’s latent urge to grab his bat, but after a moment he starts up a muttered recitation of yesterday’s menu, which seems to consist mostly of soup and milk. At least that’s all Steve catches. The doctor seems to hear him fine, though, calmly writing the list on a notepad. Billy picks ferociously at a hole in the knee of his jeans.

“Is there a reason you aren’t eating solid foods?” the doctor says when she’s finished writing.

Billy grumbles something indecipherable.

“What was that?” says Nomura, still patient. Steve guesses she got plenty of practice when Billy lived here for two months.

“Not hungry,” says Billy. 

“You’re nauseous, still?”

“Guess so.”

“Hm, we’ll have to adjust the haloperidol. How often does this occur?”

Billy shrugs again.

Nomura hums. “If you’re taking the prednisone on an empty stomach, that’ll make the nausea worse. It’s a vicious cycle. The antiemetic should help, but we need to find a reliable way to get calories into you. You’re not going to heal on a semi-starvation diet.”

“Starvation?” Billy scoffs.

Nomura flaps the notepad in her hand. “For a person your age and size, and with the work your body is doing to heal you, I’d say you need twice this much.” She makes a note. “I’ll give you the name of a supplement you can mix with milk three times a day. It should make up the difference in calories and protein, as long as you continue eating small meals as well. Do you think you could incorporate something like oatmeal?”

Dr. Nomura and Billy go on for a while discussing what foods Billy can and cannot choke down on a daily basis, and Steve zones out for a bit. Then he hears the doctor ask in a kind of stern voice: “Cigarettes?”

“No,” Billy grumbles. “I’m doing the gum. I need you to up my prescription.”

“Billy, the point of the gum is to step down your nicotine intake.”

“Really, lady, that’s the priority here?!”

She sighs. “I’ll see what I can do. Drinking?”

Billy shrugs.

“You need to be careful not to overstress your liver. It did take a hit.”

“Fine.”

“And have you seen the hand specialist I referred you to?”

“I look like I’m made of money?”

“If you show them the insurance card I gave you they should only require a small copay.” When Billy doesn’t respond, she goes on, “Please think about it. As I’ve said repeatedly, I think with more therapy you can regain full sensation in your left hand, at least.”

Billy stays stubbornly silent. Dr. Nomura sighs again, giving it up for now.

“And you aren’t over-exerting yourself? Remember, I said light cardio, fifteen to thirty minutes a day.”

“No, ma’am,” grits Billy. “I’m taking it easy.”

Nomura studies him for a moment, then nods, keeps flipping through Billy’s chart.

“Billy—” Steve says.

Billy gives him a warning look, and Steve swallows hard.

“It’s—” Steve glances between them with that familiar feeling of impending stupidity. “He’s walking like two hours to work and back every day. At night. And it's getting cold.”

Steve doesn’t dare look anywhere in Billy’s vicinity. Thinks he might die on the spot. Like, Billy will spontaneously manifest Eleven-style telekinesis just to strike Steve down. Nomura looks at Steve now for the first time since their initial introduction. Then she turns back to Billy.

“Is this true? Where are you working?”

“Gas station. Night shift.” Billy sounds like his jaw’s ‘bout to pop from how hard he’s clenching it.

“And you think that’s wise?”

“It’s not optional. I have _responsibilities_.” 

Nomura frowns. “I’m not against you working as long as you keep heavy lifting to a minimum. But these long walks have to stop. Your lung is scarred, and while moderate exercise is certainly helpful, stressing them too much could put you back on a ventilator. I don’t think either of us want to see that happen.”

While she’s talking Steve hazards the tiniest flick of his eyes in Billy’s direction. Billy seems to sense it with some predator’s instinct, turning eyes on Steve that are so cold he actually shivers.

“It’s temporary,” Billy insists. “I’m saving up for new wheels. Shouldn’t take more than a few weeks.”

“I can drive him until then,” Steve offers, like the incurable dumbass he is. “Family Video closes at nine, and you don’t work till, what, almost midnight?” He looks toward Billy but not at him. “Should be able to work it out for a couple weeks.”

Dr. Nomura nods. “Do that.” She looks intently at Billy then, leans forward and rests her narrow hand on his knee, covering the tear in his jeans. A twitch seizes one side of Billy’s face from his eyebrow to the corner of his mouth. He goes totally rigid, but he doesn’t pull away.

“Billy,” she says, “You’re young and strong. Your body _will_ heal if given the opportunity. But you have to give it the necessary tools to do so. Be patient.”

When Billy says nothing, Nomura gives him a final pat and stands up. “I’ll see you in two weeks. Take care.” She hands him a stack of prescriptions with a sticky note on top.

As soon as she leaves, Billy’s on the move, striding out of the room and down the hall. Steve struggles to follow, turning the corner just in time to see Billy fling down his ID badge on the front desk and march out the front door. When Steve steps out into the parking lot he can see Billy walk past the Caravan, heading for the road.

“What the fuck, Billy?” Steve hollers from across the parking lot, but Billy doesn’t react.

Steve runs to the car, tosses his ice pack onto the dashboard and gets the key in the ignition as quick as he can. He peels out of the parking lot and drives over to Billy, catching up with him just after he’s crossed the road, walking fast along the line of trees with his shoulders hunched and his hands shoved in his jacket pockets. 

Steve slows to a crawl, rolls the window down and leans out to talk to him. 

“Come on,” he says. “Just get in the car.”

Billy keeps walking. The earth on the side of the road slopes up sharply, forcing him to walk all funny, one foot higher than the other. Steve can’t help but laugh at him. Internally. 

“I know you’re pissed off, but this is ridiculous.”

Billy flips him off over his shoulder.

“I guess you’ll just walk home, then,” Steve says, nodding to himself like this is reasonable. “Shouldn’t take you more than ten hours if you hustle.”

Billy’s shoulders whip around then. “Fuck you, Harrington!” he roars, hoarse, stumbling slightly. “I’ll walk a year ‘fore I catch a ride with a rat like you.”

Steve thinks he’s spent way too much of this day chasing Billy around so that Steve can do things for him. He’s strongly tempted to fuck off like Billy said. Knowing Billy, he’d probably find a way home on his own—hitch a ride or two, walk the rest of the way. A part of Steve is convinced that Billy could survive cockroach-like through almost any hardship. After all, a few months ago he got stabbed through, like, most of his organs, and yet there he goes, struggling along on the side of the road, fueled only by gum and spite.

But another part of Steve thinks that’s not true. Billy’s human like anyone else, whatever that thing did with his body.

“Billy, I wasn’t ratting you out. She needed to know. What you’re doing is really dumb, and I’m worried about you—”

Steve sees Billy twitch even from behind, can hear the strange strangled sound he makes in the back of his throat. “Nobody asked you to worry, you dweeb.” 

A car surges up in Steve’s rearview, laying on the horn as it passes him on the narrow road. Billy flinches and almost trips. Steve clenches his fists, itching to grab him and haul him into the car.

“Well, somebody ought to. It’s beyond fucked up that your dad’s making you do this when you’re still hurt, but if you’d just let me—”

“Nobody made me do anything,” Billy snarls. “Cars don’t grow on trees, not that your pampered ass would know.” He gestures sharply at the Caravan.

“I might be rich and spoiled but even I know one of the adults in that house should be helping you instead of letting you hike through Hawkins alone, at night, when you’re skinny and sick and you almost died!”

Billy stops walking then for the first time since the conversation began, looks around at Steve with this incredulous expression, and Steve blushes as what he’s said catches up with him.

“What are you, my goddamn mom?” Billy makes a fist in his own hair, pulling at it and hiding behind his arm. 

“Billy, please.” Steve presses the advantage. “Just get in the car. I’ll take you home, we don’t have to talk or anything. You can put on horrible music and turn it up till I can’t feel my face.” 

There’s a moment with no sound but the wind in the trees and the grumble of Steve’s engine, while Billy stands still, face tucked in the crook of his arm so Steve can’t see anything but his heaving breaths. Then he slowly walks around the hood of the car, opens the passenger door and drops in the seat. Steve steps on the gas as soon as the door shuts. 

For a couple of minutes there’s just that quiet. Steve drives. Billy breathes. Then, out of the blue, Billy whispers: “He won’t even look at me.” 

The sentence hangs in the car’s closed atmosphere like the words of a ghost.

“Who won't?” Steve finally ventures. But it seems Billy’s done talking. Steve starts to pull out his smokes, but then he thinks about Billy’s scarred lungs, and he puts them away.

—

Half an hour later Steve pulls into the parking lot of a shabby but charming diner just outside of Huntington. He glances over to see Billy rouse once again from a daze, blinking around with dawning suspicion. “You said straight home,” he accuses.

“Look, I haven’t eaten since seven o’clock this morning. I don’t know about you, but I gotta eat.” And he gets out of the car and goes in, lets Billy follow or not. He really is starving. 

After a couple of minutes Billy kind of falls into the glittery green booth across from him. Now that Steve’s seeing him head-on, he looks god-awful, pale and sweaty, braced over the tabletop with his eyes closed like he’s dizzy. But Steve clamps down on his embarrassing motherly urges and doesn’t comment, just hmms over his laminated one-page menu until a waitress appears by their table.

She gives the two of them a long, skeptical look, but she’s surely seen worse. She’s maybe five or so years older than Steve, looking worn out but pretty, with dark frizzy hair tucked behind her ears and light pink lipstick. “Afternoon, boys. What’ll you have to drink?”

Billy orders coffee, Steve a Coke. She says “I’ll have those right out,” and leaves, and their table gets awkward. Billy sits there looking half-dead, listlessly chewing his nicotine gum.

“I’m gonna take a leak,” Steve says, hopping up out of the booth. He finds the two-stall bathroom and does his business, then takes his time as he makes his way back to their booth, needing a break from Billy and everything that’s going on with him. He checks out all the kitschy shit tacked on the walls, a giant Coke cap, vintage car ads, a framed black-and-white photo of the diner when it opened in the 40s.

A minute after he returns to their booth, the waitress brings his bottled Coke and Billy’s mug of coffee. She asks what they’ll have, glancing Billy’s way first. 

“Coffee’s good,” he says, raising his mug half-heartedly. He doesn't even try to flirt with her.

She gives him a once-over, raises her brow. “If you say so. You?” She turns to Steve.

“Burger and fries. Extra pickles. And a side of mashed potatoes with gravy. And a chocolate milkshake.”

She gets all that down, smiling faintly. When she takes off again, Billy snorts. “You’re really doubling down on the potatoes there.” He pulls his gum out of his mouth and sticks it to the underside of the table.

Steve shrugs. “Potatoes are the starch of the gods.”

“You’re lucky you’re built like a string bean, pretty boy.”

Steve meets his eyes, heart jumping. Billy hasn’t called him that once since getting Flayed.

“Fuck off,” he laughs, and Billy smirks, sips his coffee. Black, of course, ‘cause he’s gotta be like that.

“Okay. How are you not hungry?” Steve demands, unable to stop himself.

Billy takes another sip. Then he says, low-voiced, “D’you know that thing made me drink bleach, chlorine? It was five days of that.” His tongue traces over his bottom lip. “Shit stays with you.”

“Jesus.” Steve sips his Coke, shudders as its chemical fizz crawls down his throat. He sets the bottle down. “Ugh.”

“Yup.”

“Still… eating, ‘s not really optional, is it?”

Billy rolls his eyes. “I eat. Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it.”

There it is again. Like Billy’s just remembered he thinks Steve is pretty.

Just then, their food—Steve’s food—arrives. Without a word, he pushes the chocolate shake across the table towards Billy, who grimaces. Which is ridiculous, because the milkshake looks awesome, like a picture in an ad. It’s in one of those tapered glasses, topped with whipped cream and chocolate syrup and a gleaming maraschino cherry. If Billy doesn’t drink the shake, Steve definitely will.

For now, though, he tucks into his burger, which is totally decent. He makes exaggerated relishing sounds as he chews, scrubbing two fries at a time through a pool of ketchup and shoving them in his mouth. Across the table Billy’s just staring at the damn milkshake, and call Steve crazy but he looks _hungry_. 

Steve leans across the table, wraps his fingers around the chilly glass, and takes a long slurp through the red plastic straw, all like, “Damn, that’s good.” He plucks the cherry off the top and nudges the shake back to Billy.

“You’re such a dumbass,” Billy mutters, but he finally takes a sip.

 _Score._ Steve grins around the cherry in his mouth. “It’s good, right?”

“It’s a chocolate milkshake. Of course it’s fucking good.” Now Billy’s really sucking the thing down, like he can’t help it, cheeks hollowing out, eyes fluttering shut. And now Steve’s getting hard. Because he’s been that straw.

Because even with his messed up hair and his dark circles and the inkblot scar on his cheek, Billy is beautiful. It’s just a fact.

Steve ducks his head and stuffs his face and doesn’t look up ‘til he hears the dry sucking sound of no-more-milkshake. Then he prods the dish of mashed potatoes forward, still not looking. Still half-hard. 

“Christ,” says Billy. But Steve hears the clink of a spoon on a dish.

They eat in silence.

“Sorry about your face,” Billy says suddenly, scraping the last clinging bits of potato from the sides of his dish.

Steve stares, thrown for a loop. “Well. Uh. It was a long time ago,” he tries, voice coming out all weird. Arousal thoroughly squelched.

“I meant—today.”

Steve touches his nose. “Oh, yeah.” Then suddenly he’s pissed off. “But you aren’t sorry about the other time, I guess.”

Billy frowns, makes a frustrated sound. “I—”

“‘Cause you know man, you could have killed me. Like you almost ended my actual life. Do you understand that?”

“Course I—”

“Like, my life isn’t perfect, but that doesn’t mean I want to stop living it. I enjoy, you know,” he looks around, “burgers, and I have friends! And _great_ hair—”

There’s definitely more and better things Steve has to live for, but his sleep deprived brain can’t spit out examples on a good day, and he’s really riled up, because Billy never apologized, and those same fists that broke his face are slamming down on the table.

“Yep, I coulda killed you, and yet here you are, carting me around and feeding me ice cream! What the fuck is wrong with you? You got brain damage, or were you just born without a shred of self-preservation?!”

Steve laughs bitterly. “Yeah, probably the first thing. I’m getting the stuffing knocked out of me annually now.”

“What?”

“Well, while you were possessed I got trapped in a secret underground Russian base and tortured a little. Last year there was you. And the year before that it was Jonathan Byers.”

“Jonathan _Byers_??” Billy’s eyes pop out of his head. That’s what gets him, not the secret Russian base.

“Yeah, well, I kinda deserved it. That time.”

Billy tilts his head down toward the table, clenches his fists, grimaces while he breathes out long and slow.

“Look, when I—get worked up, when—” His eyes squeeze shut. “Sometimes I just. Go away. Up here.” He taps his own temple in a gesture that’s more like a stab.

Steve stares at him. “Are you saying you don’t remember?”

Billy makes a frustrated sound. “It’s not—I remember, but all I saw was—I wasn’t—seein’ you.” His voice gets tight and angry. “I’m fuckin’ sorry, okay? I’m sorry.” 

On his thighs under the tabletop Steve’s hands start to shake. “That is such bullshit.”

“W-what?”

“You can’t just do that, say you ‘went away’ somewhere, so you didn’t really do it, so you’re not really to blame.”

“That’s not what I said!”

“Besides, I _know_ that’s not why you targeted Lucas.” Steve glares, remembering all the reasons to hate Billy that have nothing to do with Steve himself.

“It wasn’t like that.”

“Oh, yeah? What was it like then?”

Billy stares down at the table. “Maxine is my responsibility,” he says finally, in a kind of snotty voice, a schoolboy reciting a rule.

“What does that even mean?”

“Means she’s got to stay in line. Means it’s on me if she’s hanging out with the wrong crowd.”

“‘The wrong crowd’ meaning black kids. Are you hearing yourself?”

“Like I give a shit!”

“Then why not leave them alone?”

Billy’s voice lowers to a furious whisper. “My old man’s traditional. It doesn’t go so good for either of us, making friends he won’t like.”

Steve barks a harsh laugh. “Traditional.” He thinks for a long minute. “Okay, so you weren’t there when you were hitting me, and your dad’s racist, not you.”

Billy throws up his hands. “What do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know, man. Just, like… do better. Don’t hurt people.”

Billy’s face scrunches shut like he wants to scream, but he breathes in and out slowly, and then he says very low and rough, like each word hurts, “They got me on a mood stabilizer.” He thumbs viciously at the mark on his cheek. “I, I don’t want to, anyway. After Him. I get mad, wanna hit something, but I get sick to my stomach. I have to lie down.”

Steve thinks about that. Watches him, the anger that radiates from his tight, drawn-in shoulders. But Billy’s keeping himself in check. Maybe Steve’s entitled, even obligated, to grill Billy further, but he’s tired. And after all that’s happened today, Billy must feel pretty exposed—humiliated, even. Steve’s seen his messy room, his holey socks, his head studded like a pincushion. Been privy to his medical details. Watched him flinch, sulk, gasp for air, apologize. And objectively, it was a bad apology, but Steve doubts he gives them often.

“Well, I guess that’s a start,” he says. “Yeah, okay, I accept your shitty apology.”

Billy eyes him warily. “Just like that?”

Steve shrugs, sighs. “You know, there's not a lot of people who know what’s going on in Hawkins. Like, don’t get me wrong, you mess with any one of those kids and I’m coming for you. But I figure we’re gonna need each other next time shit hits the fan. What’s the point in holding a grudge?”

“What’s the point?” Billy shakes his head. “Like, maybe I’ll do it again?”

“Will you? You just said it makes you sick.”

Billy looks away.

“I dunno. I think I could take you now.” Steve flexes his bicep, kisses it. Just as suddenly as it came, he’s not mad anymore. “You know, I did manage to take out one Russian before they captured us. Knocked him flat on his ass. I’d been meaning to tell you.” 

Billy lets out a shaky gust of air that might be a laugh. “You need to stay the hell away from me.” 

“Why’s that?”

“Because you—” He hunches down over the table again, looking pained. “You _piss_ me off.”

“Hey, right back atcha.”

“I’ll mess you up.” But it doesn’t sound like a threat. Like maybe what he’s really saying is _you mess me up._ “I don’t wanna look at you.” _I don’t want you looking at me._

“I think I’ve seen this in a movie. The whole, ‘stay away from me, I’m a bad man’ routine.” 

“Don’t treat it like a joke.”

“Don’t be a cliche and I won’t.” 

“I killed thirty people,” Billy snarls. 

Their waitress picks this exact moment to stop by with the check. She looks between them, slip of paper wilting in her hand. She’s trying to find the joke, but Billy’s grim face throws her off.

“This guy,” Steve says with a ‘whatcha-gonna-do’ shrug-and-head-shake. “Takes his tabletop roleplaying games way too seriously.” He fishes a twenty out of his pocket and extends it to her with a weak smile. “Keep the change.”

“You take care,” she says dubiously, backing off. Steve stuffs a last fry in his mouth and scoots out of the booth, thinking they should hightail it in case she calls the cops. Billy, of course, has already stormed off. Steve sees him crash through the diner’s cute vestibule, no regard for the rubber plants.

Outside he stands by the Caravan, all twitchy, pacing a tight circle and gnawing his thumbnail. He jumps in the car real quick when Steve unlocks it, no convincing necessary.

Steve gets in more slowly. Turns to Billy, who’s busy destroying his cuticle. “Billy,” Steve says. “You didn’t kill anyone.”

Billy wipes a drop of blood on his pant leg. “Let’s get goin’,” he mutters.

“Like, yeah, you’ve done a lot of messed up things, and you need to take responsibility for them, beyond, like, ‘oh, rage blackout, oopsie.’” Billy glowers at his lap but says nothing. “But this isn’t one of those things. You know that, right?”

A horrible thought occurs to Steve. “They—someone explained this to you, right?? That there’s a monster from another dimension that wants to, like—well I’m not really sure _what_ it wants, the kids can explain it better, but—”

“No, yeah, I got it, dipshit. I just don’t buy it.”

“You don’t _buy_ it?” Steve shouldn’t sound so indignant, considering this shit is bananas at, like, base level, but— “What do you think happened, then?”

“I know there was a monster. I just think there’s a thing called free will.” 

Steve rolls his eyes. “Yeah, sure. There’s also a thing called _getting possessed_.”

“Why me, huh? It picked me for a reason. Recognized something in me it could use.”

“It happened to Will Byers too. You think Will wanted to put his friends and family in danger? Think it picked _him_ because he’s, like, innately evil?”

“Of course not,” Billy scoffs. “He’s a kid. It chose him because he was vulnerable.” 

Steve gives Billy the longest, most pointed look in the history of long pointed looks. It still takes Billy a hot second to get what he’s trying to say.

“ _Motherfucker_ ,” Billy swears, then, disgusted. “You want it so bad. Some sick puppy to feed.”

“What?”

“Is that what does it for you? You want me to lie at the foot of your bed?” Suddenly he’s back, the Billy Steve knew in June, with that dangerous gleam in his eye, that wicked tongue flicking over his teeth.

Steve’s articulate as ever, in the face of him. “I— _what_?”

“That it, Stevie?” Billy murmurs, leaning so close Steve can smell the sugar on his breath. “You want me to lick you?” Plain sight in the parking lot, his scarred hand snakes up Steve’s thigh.

“No!” Steve grabs his hand, holds onto it. “I don’t know what this is, right now, but you need to chill out.” His voice trembles slightly.

Billy tries to yank out of Steve’s grip but he holds on. “Hey,” Steve says, watching Billy shrink back into his new, miserable self. “What do you need right now?” 

It sounds awful when Billy laughs. “I need a fucking cigarette.” His voice cracks on ‘cigarette’ and he clamps a hand over his mouth. Steve watches in something like astonishment as tears slip down Billy’s cheeks and over his fingers, his belly silently convulsing as he cries.

Steve has never known how to react to crying people, and a crying Billy Hargrove is in a league of his own. But luckily, he’s already holding Billy’s hand, so he keeps doing that, rubbing his thumb slowly over the ridges of Billy’s scars. They’re smoother than they look. Steve hopes he isn’t hurting him.

It’s over in under a minute. Billy tugs his hand out of Steve’s grip, surreptitiously wiping his face on the shoulder of his jacket as he crosses his arms and turns to stare out the window. Steve wordlessly starts the car and backs out of the parking lot, letting soft radio music fill up the silence.

When he dares a glance sometime later, Billy’s asleep. His face is totally slack, softened by the afternoon light, the honey-colored upholstery. He’s still asleep when they get to the Hargrove house. There’s a car in the driveway now, the little green one.

Steve parks on the street and sits quietly for a minute, listening to Billy’s snuffling breaths and debating what to do. He’s going to be late for work, but he’s loath to wake Billy up.

“Billy, wake up,” he says, anyway. Billy’s eyelashes flutter but he doesn’t move. “Wake up so you can go sleep in your bed. Or your couch or whatever.” Still getting no response, he reaches out and gently shakes Billy’s shoulder, quickly moving out of range so he doesn’t get hit.

But Billy wakes up easier this time, blinking blearily around. He makes a wordless, questioning sound.

“Hey, man, we’re at your house,” Steve says awkwardly. “You work tonight?”

Billy nods, almost comically out of it. His eyes drift over to look at his house.

“What time you gotta be there?”

“‘Leven thirty.”

“Alright, I’ll be here.”

Billy’s brow furrows and he seems to get way more alert all at once. “No.”

Steve sighs. “Can we not do this again? I’m giving you a ride.”

Billy shakes his head. “I said no, Harrington.”

“Look, I know you’ve got a lot of pride or whatever, but I’m going to show up whether you like it or not.”

“I’ll just start walking without you.”

“Then I’ll just stay here for the rest of the afternoon.” He’s bluffing, since he’s got work, but Billy doesn’t have to know that.

“Don’t you have a life?”

“No, I really don’t.”

Billy lets out a loud, frustrated sound. “Harrington, I—I _need_ to walk.”

“What? Why?”

Billy goes silent again. That’s getting really old.

  
“I’m pretty sure your doctor just said you need to _not_ walk. You know you could permanently fuck up your body if you don’t take care of yourself, right?”

“My body’s already _permanently fucked up_ , as you’re well aware,” Billy snarls, slicing a hand down over his torso, all soft sleepiness gone. At Steve’s caught look, he goes on, “Yeah, you ain’t slick, Harrington.” Steve looks away. “Aw, don’t look so guilty. Everyone likes a good freakshow.” He gets out of the car and slams the door.

“I’ll be here at eleven,” Steve calls, recovering. Remembering Max’s words: _Ignore him, and help him._ Steve thinks he’s getting good at that.

—

The Hargrove house is quiet when Steve returns that night, muted yellow light glowing in two of the windows. He yawns, resigned to the likelihood that Billy left an hour ago to walk his sad carcass across town, but after a moment the front door opens and a figure comes down the walkway. The passenger door squeaks open and Billy lands in the seat, smelling like he just took a shower.

“I’m only doing this ‘cause I overslept,” he mumbles. 

“Well, thanks so much for allowing me to chauffeur you,” Steve snarks back.

“You’re welcome.”

Steve snorts and starts the car. A few minutes later he’s pulled up by the front of the Quick Mart, and Billy’s climbing out. There’s a slim paperback sticking out of his jacket pocket.

“Well, uh. Have a good shift, then.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, actually, I better get some gas! Been driving a lot today, ha ha.”

Steve gets a ten out of his wallet, holds it out for Billy to take through the window.

“No, man, it’s on me,” Billy mutters. “Least I can do.”

“But—you’re trying to save for a car.”

“And I will. Night, Harrington.” Billy does a little salute as he turns around and walks into the store.

Steve pumps his gas, watches through the fiberglass storefront as Billy has a brief exchange with Otis, allowing himself to be fist-bumped with only a slight moue of distaste, before disappearing into the back, reappearing a moment later, giving Otis that same lazy salute as the guy leaves. Then Billy wanders around straightening stuff on the shelves, starts a new pot of coffee. In the darkness outside, Steve can see every move he makes. And he’s struck by the thought of how easy it would be to kidnap Billy like this. A picture flashes in his head, the place swarmed by evil Russians disguised as truckers, unseen by Billy until they’re on him, drugging him, dragging him off to use in experiments.

Sucking in a breath, Steve yanks the nozzle out of his tank and screws the gas cap back on. He hops back in the car, starts it, and parks over in one of the spaces along the side of the building. Goes in. The jingle of the bell barely registers over the sound of his pulse in his ears.

Billy looks up from where he’s pouring himself a cup of coffee, glancing over his shoulder. “What, you need cigarettes too?”

“Uh. Yeah.”

“Marlboros, right?” Billy checks, crossing the room, coffee in hand. The waist-height plastic door swings as he ducks behind the counter, rattling harshly.

“Yeah.”  
  
“That’s seventy-five cents.”

Steve gets out his wallet to count out some change, but can’t seem to get his fingers to work right. Coins clatter on the floor. “Shit, shit—” he kneels, pawing at nickels and dimes. His head gets all cold and numb like a slushy, and he closes his eyes, bracing himself on the floor.

Something warm bumps against his shoulder. He smells shampoo and menthol, the faint lingering stink of cigarettes.

He muzzily opens his eyes to see two scratched-up hands moving before him, carefully scooping coins off the ground. A grip around his wrist, turning his hand over; warm coins tumbling into his palm, that rough hand tucking his fingers around them.

“Alright?” Billy’s voice swims to him. Steve looks up and Billy's frowning slightly, but his face is calm.

“Can I stay?” Steve blurts.

Billy’s brow furrows. “What?”

"It cool if I hang out for a while?” Steve pants.

Straightening up, shrugging, Billy says, “It’s a free country.” And he goes back behind the counter and opens his book.

Steve stays, though he can hardly keep his eyes open. Stays till the dawn seeps, pink and blue, back into the world beyond the Quick Mart's four flimsy walls, banishing the monsters for one more day.


	6. INCISOR

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thank you to [Twilkins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/twilkins), who beta read this chapter! Your feedback made such a big difference in the writing process, and I super appreciate it. <3
> 
> There's more references to disordered eating and weight loss in this chapter, though it's not so explicit a subject here as it was in the last chapter. Everyone please take care of yourselves.

“Oh my god. Where the eff is ‘candy’?” 

Steve pitches his voice loud. He’s perched on the counter in the Quick Mart, legs swinging back and forth, a daily word search wrapped around his thigh. He has most of the words circled—including WITCH, SPIDER, and BOO—but it’s hard to focus at four in the morning, and his pen is running out of ink.

And Billy was doing that thing he does, where he’s “reading,” but his focus slowly drifts from the book in front of him toward some indeterminate point, jaw slack around the gum in his mouth, eyes vacant and scary. Now they twitch back into awareness, sweep slowly over the shitload of sugary food in the store, before landing on Steve with a look of judgment.

“I mean on the word search.” Steve flaps the newspaper at him.

Billy just rolls his eyes, readjusts his artful lean, goes back to his book. He pins them down with a flat hand pressed to each edge, or else a forearm braced along the bottom of both pages—his fingers tire quickly of gripping. Steve likes to watch him turn the pages, that sort of slide with the heel of his hand, followed by a downward slap, like swatting a fly.

“I’m in a rut, Billy,” Steve teases. “I need a second set of eyes.”

“You need a second set of—brains.”

“Wow. Good one.”

Billy flips him a loose, low middle finger, not letting go of his book. Steve laughs once, squinting back at the word puzzle, but the letters slide over top of each other; he shakes his head wet-dog style, hopping down from the counter. “Okay, time to refuel.” He grabs his empty cup and ambles over to the coffee machine in the corner. “You want anything?”

“You’d better not be getting more coffee,” Billy calls back from across the room, ignoring the question as always.

“I can’t keep my eyes open! What do you want me to do?” Steve doesn’t mention that coffee’s his mainstay in the absence of tobacco, which he tries not to smoke around Billy. He’d just get all scowly, probably insist Steve smoke a cigarette then and there, so Billy can prove he’s not weak.

“How about this,” Billy drawls. “Go home to your perfectly good bed in your perfectly disgusting mansion.”

“C’mon, I’ll make a new pot.” Steve pours his fourth or fifth cup of the night, its bitter tang lining his nostrils. “You won’t have to put down your riveting read about sixteenth century nobles.”

“It’s gothic horror, you dumbfuck.”

“You’re gothic horror,” Steve snickers to himself, dumping a packet of Swiss Miss into his cup and stirring it into the coffee.

“Good one!”

“Thanks!”

Steve takes a sip of his cocoa-coffee concoction, then pulls the filter basket out of the coffee maker by its plastic handle and chucks the old grounds in the trash. He crouches down and slides open the cabinet below, grabbing the ruffled white filters and pre-ground coffee packets. And yeah, maybe it takes him a while to get the machine a-gurgling, but he forgot the word for money a little while ago, so that doesn’t mean anything. He and his beverage mosey back over to the counter, and he hops back up, surveying the cramped, dingy store that’s starting to seem ‘cozy’ and ‘quaint’ as the nights crawl by. It’s been almost a week, now, hanging out here more nights than not.

“You pour, you pay,” Billy bitches, not looking up.

“Yeah, yeah.” Steve rummages in his pocket and adds a few coins to the pile he has going beside the register.

It’s probably the exhaustion talking, but still, there’s something comforting about the crowdedness of the store, the patchwork of colors and logos and brand names—Lucky Strike, Entenmann's, Yoohoo, Bic. The quiet music, the smell of coffee, the ding of the bell welcoming truckers and teens and normal fucking people whose night has been somehow derailed. There’s a strange ease to interactions here, the witching-hour weirdness and sleep-deprived fog making everything not quite real. Same with him and Billy, he guesses. It’s easy to talk in here—even, sometimes, about dark things. Dead girls in pools, vines snaking down throats, the knowledge that, God, it’s only a matter of time—these things they shouldn’t dare touch, in a place so quiet and dark. But somehow, low-voiced, in fragments, they talk.

Steve nestles his coffee cup between his thighs, and lets his eyes shut, just for a minute. 

Then he’s yanked roughly backward, as someone cries, “Son of a bitch!”

“Ohmif’god!” His legs flail around and he has to grab on to the back edge of the counter to keep his balance. “What the hell?”

“You just about busted your skull on a concrete floor, is what!” Billy tugs again at the back of Steve’s shirt, still twisted in his fist, and Steve shivers. “Get down from there.”

“Okay, okay.” Steve pulls out of his grip, slides down until his feet meet the floor. Oh, damn, his cocoa-coffee went everywhere, including the bottom of his pants, his shoes, and the floor. Quickly he picks up the paper cup and jogs to the small, poorly maintained single-occupancy restroom to grab paper towels.

“See? I’m cleaning up. No harm, no foul.”

Billy eyes him disdainfully. “Coulda used the mop.” Steve ignores him, though he is right. Once all the liquid’s sopped up, Steve stretches across the counter but can’t quite reach the trash can, so he swings himself over and plops down next to Billy, dunking the paper towels.

“This is an employee-only area,” Billy informs him, but he’s betrayed by the twitch at the corner of his mouth, the one that makes him look like a teenager, and not some thirty-year-old bum. Definitely helps that he shaved the other day. There’s a couple spots where he nicked himself, but they aren’t obvious until you get close.

Steve lounges back, propping one foot against the opposite wall. “Afraid I’m gonna give you cooties?”

That corner curls helplessly up. “You’re giving me hives.” 

“Well, you’re the one who didn’t want me falling on my pretty face.” It gets like this, sometimes, at five o’clock in the morning. Gets to that point where Steve can make jokes that are way too close to not-jokes. Billy bumps into Steve with his shoulder, sharp through the layers of his clothes, and Steve shoves him back, palm cupping that bony shoulder, lingering for an instant. It’s late; they’re moving in slow motion.

Billy looks away, reaching to pop a new piece of gum in his mouth.

“You don’t have to do this,” he says, through the gum.

“Do what?” Steve reaches over to grab a pack of orange earplugs, tosses it in the air, lunges sideways to catch it.

“ _Be here_ ,” Billy says, sounding frustrated. He traces a finger over the spine of his book. “Your folks don’t care that you’re getting home at the crack of dawn?”

A little spasm makes Steve’s arm jerk, and the earplugs flop on the floor. Graveyard shift means his return home coincides with Mom’s daily coffee hour, so yeah, she’s aware. That first time she caught him stumbling in at six, he’d gone ahead and told her the mostly-truth: that he has a buddy who’s going through some shit, who needs company for his nighttime shifts. Steve really played up Billy’s unfortunate circumstances, sticking with the official story—the mental breakdown, the car wreck—and Mom had given him one of those little closed-mouth smiles of approval that make him lightheaded and hungry.

“Nope,” he responds. “Do yours?” 

Billy glares and doesn’t answer, yanking his book back toward him. And yeah, that was shitty to ask.

“You, uh, any closer to getting a car?” Steve pivots.

Billy scowls down at his hands, half-hidden in the cuffs of his shirt. Steve thinks Billy’s going to ice him out, but after a moment, he seems to accept the question for the apology it is. “Halfway there, maybe,” he confesses, mouth twisting. “I’m looking into some things.”

“Looking into some things?”

“Options. Yardwork, or, car shit. I can paint.” 

“Hmm.” Steve doesn’t say what he’s thinking, that some of those things might be tough for Billy with his physical limitations. From the stoop of his shoulders, Billy knows it already.

A light goes on in Steve’s head. “You know, Robin’s uncle was looking for someone to watch his dogs while he’s, like, at some conference? She’s too busy to do it.” And Steve isn’t sure about dogs anymore. Suddenly he’s curious: “You ever had a dog?”

Lips pressed together, Billy just says, “No thank you,” all pissy. Steve nevers knows what’ll rub him the wrong way.

“Suit yourself,” Steve shrugs. Then, to distract him, he braces his hands on the counter and vaults back over it, one foot narrowly missing the chapstick display. “Snack time.”

But, like usual, Billy won’t take a bite of anything Steve offers him, not the trail mix or the jerky or even the chocolate pudding, just chews his stupid gum, shadows twisting in the hollows of his cheeks.

—

It’s about six fifteen when Steve fumbles his house key into the lock, face cracked by a yawn. He kicks off his shoes, pokes his head into the kitchen and finds his mom sitting at the bar in a quilted robe, writing something on a notepad, sipping coffee from a pale green mug. 

“Morning,” says Steve, crossing the room to pull a glass out of a cabinet.

“Good morning,” Mom replies, pen stilling as she glances up. “How’s your friend?”

“He’s alright,” Steve fills his glass with water. “Seems like he’s feeling better. Less cranky, not that that’s saying much. He still won’t eat anything, though.”

“Hmm. That’s not good,” Mom frowns. “Well, you let him know he’s welcome anytime,” she offers, not for the first time.

Steve drains his glass, refills it. “Yeah. Well. I’m gonna—”

“Go. Sleep.” She waves him off.

The silence in Steve’s room shouldn’t feel so complete, broken as it is by the quiet twitters of birds outside, the soft rustling when his clothes come off. He sets an alarm for ten thirty, pops a clonazepam. Someone as tired as he is ought to drop off immediately, but the meds take time to kick in, and all that caffeine doesn’t help—as he burrows into bed, his pulse ripples out through the sheets. Minutes later, it seems, the alarm starts yelling, and he wakes with a miserable groan, wriggling over to shut the thing off. He curls up on his side and pulls his pillow over his face, entertaining a half-dream, half-fantasy where he crawls inside his mattress and lives there like a cave hermit.

He makes it to work on time by the skin of his teeth, and Keith gives him that look that says there’s no point to his existence. Steve can’t really argue: all day, he’s yawning uncontrollably, ducking out for smoke breaks as often as he can. At one point Keith catches him nodding off behind the counter and says _what you do on your own time is your business, but tell whatever chick you’re doing that you need to sleep_. That’s pretty mortifying, but in a weird way, Steve likes these days. Staying conscious until closing time is literally the best he can do; he doesn’t have the energy to worry whether he’ll ever do better than that.

After work, Steve goes and gets a BLT at the diner down the street, with Birdie the waitress who still remembers bringing him bowls of maraschino cherries when he was little. There’s a tiny pumpkin on his table, along with the salt and pepper shakers and the napkin holder and the plastic dish of jelly packets. When the sandwich is gone, he takes a little nap, head on folded arms on the cool scratched tabletop, lulled by the sounds of clinking silverware and casual conversation and Birdie calling people 'honey.'

Eventually he rouses himself, pays his bill, and drives over to the high school. Robin and Max have rehearsal three days a week, and now that it’s nearly November and getting dark early in the evenings, it’s better if they don’t walk, bike, or skateboard alone. Steve is pretty sure Robin said six thirty, but he waits in front of the school for a long time, looking around at the other cars with parents inside, tapping on their steering wheels. It isn’t the first time he’s picked someone up from Hawkins High, but it still feels weird to be sitting in front of this school he attended less than six months ago, in the role of a—well, not a parent. A big brother, he guesses.

Finally, around seven, kids start spilling out into the lot. The sky’s dark pink, the light bleeding away. Steve can see Robin and Max gabbing together as they walk out, spot his car and jog over. Max gesticulates with both arms, broadcasting happy outrage, and Robin puts her hands on her head, shaking it in overblown dismay. Steve grins—it’s nice to see them having fun, especially Max.

“And don’t get me started on goddamn Sullivan,” Max is saying as she climbs in the backseat.

Robin opens the passenger door and swings her backpack into the footwell before swinging herself into the seat. “That kid couldn’t keep his hands to himself if you glued them together.”

“Which one is Sullivan again?” Steve asks, checking that everyone’s buckled in before starting the engine.

“Scarecrow,” Max and Robin answer in unison.

Steve waits while a shrimpy kid passes behind the Caravan, then pulls out of the parking space. “Do I need to talk to this little shit?”

Robin rolls her eyes, pats his shoulder. “Think we’ve got it covered, Dad.”

“Next time he ‘stumbles’ into me, I’m gonna punch him in the face,” Max swears, sprawling out in the backseat like she might take a nap. Robin rummages through her backpack, flips through the little notebook she uses to keep track of her life.

They pass a house with two big, grinning jack o’lanterns bookending the porch, and Steve asks, “What are you guys doing for Halloween?”

“Dustin still wants to go trick-or-treating, and I figure, why turn down free candy?” Max says, all cool.

“No Halloween for me,” Robin sighs. “I’ve got this big history paper due Monday, plus a hundred pages of reading to do over the weekend.”

Steve’s life might be boring, but he sure doesn’t miss that shit. “You getting behind?”

“Not really. I just can’t afford to get distracted, between classes and the play and work.”

Steve shakes his head. “Overachiever.” He aims for teasing but it comes out a little weird.

“You gonna go to Tina’s party?” Robin says after a minute. “I hear she’s going out in style,” she adds wryly.

He probably could go to that party. He still has friends who are seniors; it wouldn’t be that weird. But he knows he’s not gonna go.

They’re halfway across town when Max goes, “Oh, shit,” ‘cause she left her lunch bag at school, and she already lost one this school year, and her mom will be “so mad.” She says it’s okay, they don’t need to go back, but Steve insists it’s no problem, tries not to look so eager for a few more minutes of company.

Max jumps out of the car, running over to accost a custodian who’s just locking up, and Robin turns to Steve with a smile. “Feels like forever since I’ve seen you, dingus.”

“Same here, nerd.” He sits back, looking around at the near-empty parking lot, at the school that seems so small now. “It’s pretty hectic for you, huh?”

“Yeah,” Robin admits, and she looks tired, and stressed, but satisfied, too. She hasn’t said anything about college, but Steve knows it’s going to come up soon. “What’s up with you, Harrington?”

Steve stares at the steering wheel for a sec, thrown for a loop by that simple question. Robin always asks like she wants to know. “Oh, you, know,” he says finally. “Not much, really.” He’s not sure why he doesn’t tell her about Billy. He wants to tell her, he’s been meaning to tell her, just this morning he offered Billy a job on behalf of her uncle. But every time he opens his mouth, something stops him.

Robin says, “Hmm. Maybe if I make enough headway on this paper, I’ll swing by Friday night? Provided I can fight my way through the throng of trick-or-treaters in your neighborhood.”

“Yeah, sounds good.” Steve smiles a little. “So, uh, what’s your paper on?” Halfway through Robin’s thesis, Max comes back, which is lucky, since Steve is lost.

The sky’s fully dark by the time they reach Max’s house. They’d all been laughing at Max’s impression of the girls’ expletive-happy drama teacher, but they stop when they see, in the porchlight, the hurried movements of two adults in the yard. Susan Hargrove opens the passenger door of the yellow Chevrolet Vega that’s always parked at the end of the drive in the evenings, boxing in Susan’s green Plymouth. Meanwhile, a tall man rounds to the driver’s side, mouth moving in a rant. When Steve comes to a stop on the street, they both look up, rushing over as Max swings her door open. The man glares at Steve, and his eyes are so cold, cold like Billy’s can be, except harder, flatter.

“We were worried sick,” Susan is saying.

“It’s not that late,” Max protests, sounding embarrassed and a little angry.

“Not that late? It’s almost eight o’clock,” snaps Neil Hargrove, his voice as hard as his eyes. Steve’s eyes dart to the display on the dash: it’s only 7:36. “Get inside, young lady.” Neil points toward the house.

Max makes a little sound, a cut-off huff, but she turns to stomp up to the house. Susan follows her, but Neil pauses for one last cutting stare toward Steve and Robin before going inside himself.

“Max’s stepdad looks like a serial killer,” Robin says, once they’re moving again. “Like, one of those guys who seems almost too normal, until you’re tied up in his basement.” 

“Jesus, Robin.” Steve tries to shake off that mental image. Max and Billy _live with_ that guy. “You’re kinda right, though.”

At home, Mom is hosting a dinner—there’s been a disturbing rise in dinners over the last week or two. There are two neatly dressed couples sitting on either side of the dining table, Mom at the head, pouring more wine for the woman to her left. She introduces Steve to them all with gracefully concealed embarrassment and invites him to join, but he explains that he already ate, and escapes upstairs. He has a few hours kill before he has to go get Billy again.

Sitting at his desk, he smokes a cigarette, blowing smoke through the open window, fingers poised over the crystal ashtray on the sill. It belonged to his grandfather before the dude croaked when Steve was, like, eight. Might have been lung cancer, actually. Oops. With the usual sense of—something (wrongdoing, foolishness), Steve gets out a set of colored pencils and a sheet of paper, quickly draws two cold blue eyes; underneath them, a copse of orange flames. He still hasn’t magically sprouted talent, but he stuffs the paper into his desk drawer with the rest of the pictures he draws when he doesn’t know what to do with the shit in his brain. Then he flops onto his made bed and rests awhile, letting his mind go blank.

—

The lights are still on in the Hargrove house, though it’s after eleven. Billy never actually agreed to this arrangement, but that first night, Steve snuck a peek at the employee schedule in the Quick Mart’s (surprisingly homey) back office, and he’s just kept showing up ever since. Usually, Billy waits outside for him, but tonight the minutes stretch on and on. Steve’s debating whether to knock on the door when it swings swiftly open and shut, a Billy-shaped figure hustling down the central walkway. Billy crashes into the passenger seat, slams the door behind him.

“Took you awhile,” Steve comments. “Otis is gonna be pissed. Or, knowing him, gently disappointed.”

Billy says nothing, just kind of heavily breathes, and Steve senses it’s going to be one of those nights.

“How’s it going, dude?” he tries.

Not a word. There’s not even the smack of passive-aggressive gum chewing.

“Okay, total silence it is!” Steve turns up the radio. It’s on the pop station Billy hates, but he doesn’t even react. Steve sings along to Madonna in his most obnoxious falsetto, and when _that_ gets no response, he starts to get worried. 

At a stop sign, he turns to look at Billy, but he’s turned away, and Steve can’t see what his face is doing. He does notice Billy’s missing his red work vest, his name tag that says B-I-L-L-Y. “You okay, man?” Steve checks, a little gentleness sneaking into his tone.

Predictably, Billy recoils. “Fine,” he forces out, his voice weird and thick and not reassuring at all.

It’s not until they reach the gas station and its fluorescent lighting that Steve finds out what’s wrong. Billy surges out of the Caravan as soon as it’s stopped moving, marching toward the store. When Steve follows him inside, ponytailed Otis is shrugging off his vest, handing it to Billy in reluctant slow motion.

“You should really get that looked at,” Otis says dubiously, a fold of concern between his thick eyebrows.

Because Billy’s lower lip is huge and swollen, a drop of fresh blood crawling down his chin. There’s more dried blood streaked down the front of his shirt and the lapel of his jacket.

“What the hell happened to you?!” Steve demands, rushing forward to do—something.

A hand snaps up to ward him off. “I slipped.” Billy’s voice is still thick, and Steve sees it then, as his mouth stretches around the S. Before he can react, Steve grabs Billy’s wrist and crowds him against the counter. His other hand wraps, careful, around the side of Billy’s face, peeling his lip down to reveal the bloody gap where one of his lower incisors should be.

“Oh-my-god-your-tooth.” 

“I’ll kill you,” Billy snarls, wild-eyed, shoving Steve so hard he crashes back into a rack of snack cakes, which spill onto the floor. Steve’s a little shocked by the force of the reaction, pushy as he knows he’s being. Billy’s covered in blood! He’s missing a tooth!

“Jeez, you guys,” Otis winces.

Steve scowls, straightening up, hands on his hips. “What’d you slip into, a pile of bricks?” 

“Kitchen counter,” Billy lisps, glaring.

“Were you dizzy? I keep telling you you gotta eat something!”

“It’s none of y’r fuckin’ business!” Billy looks like he’s about to lose his shit, so Steve backs up, raises his hands in surrender. Moves out of the way so Otis can pick up the fallen goods before they’re trampled underfoot. Billy huddles against the counter, arms wrapped tight around his own chest. His hair’s a mess, sticking up weirdly in the back.

“What happened to your tooth?” Steve tries again, calmer now.

Billy glowers. “I jus’ told you—”

“No, I mean, where is it? The tooth.”

Reluctantly, Billy pulls a rolled-up paper towel out of his jacket pocket. Steve makes a ‘gimme’ gesture, but Billy just clutches it closer to himself.

Okay, fine. Steve taps his right fingers on his left elbow, remembering the time on the ball field in fifth grade when Tommy H. got kicked in the face. It’s funnier now than it was at the time. “How long ago did this happen?”

Billy’s shoulders twitch in what could be a shrug. “Like thirty minutes.”

“Okay. Okay, we can fix this.” Steve paces a bit, reaches out to straighten a random packet of chips. There’s a smear of blood on his thumb from touching Billy’s lip. “You tried putting it back in?”

That gets him Billy’s patented ‘you’re-an-idiot’ look. 

“If you can get it back in the socket it’ll stay wet until we can get you to the ER.” Dentist would probably be better, but it’s almost midnight.

“What?” Billy’s whole body seizes up, and he actually inches away. “I gotta work.”

Otis steps forward—Steve jumps a little, having mostly forgotten his existence. “I got you, man,” the guy says. “Go get fixed up.”

Steve hopes that’ll be the end of it, but Billy shakes his head.

“Billy. We’ve gotta get you there, like, now, or your tooth is gonna die.” When Billy just scowls at the ground, Steve starts getting frustrated. “What were you gonna do with this, huh?” Steve grabs at the hand holding Billy’s tooth bundle and gives it a shake. 

“ _Fuck_ _off._ ” Billy yanks his hand out of Steve’s grip, shoves his way through the waist-high door to stand behind the counter. “Touch me again and see what happens.”

But Steve can’t let it go. “That tooth isn’t gonna grow back!”

“You think I can afford an ER bill?” Billy gestures at their surroundings with big, sloppy movements.

Steve thinks fast. “Don’t you have, uh, insurance?” He glances Otis’ way, doesn’t specify that Billy’s insured by a freaky government lab-slash-prison. When Billy says nothing, Steve adds, “And if it doesn’t cover it, I’ve got you. Don’t worry about it.” He’s not at all sure he has the cash on hand to cover an ER visit, but he thinks his mom could be persuaded to take Billy on as a project. Horrifying as that would be.

Billy stares at him. “No way.”

“Come on, Billy,” Steve gives him the puppy-dog eyes. “Don’t just give up. I know shit feels hopeless right now, but in five years, you’re gonna want that tooth.” 

Billy’s eyes and fists clench, and for a minute there it looks like he’ll have a full-on meltdown. But finally he sags forward, leaning on his hands, hissing “Fine,” out through his teeth. “If it’ll shut you up.”

Once the decision is made, Billy gets kind of drowsy and remote, and Steve makes quick work of examining the lost tooth—at least Billy used a wet paper towel—and cajoles him into placing the tooth back into its socket. That was the important thing, Steve’s fifth grade teacher had said, keeping the roots wet so the tooth doesn’t die. Otis shoos them away, wishes them luck. Billy has to bite down on the folded-up paper towel to hold his tooth in place, and his voice comes out awkward and muffled, so the drive to Hawkins General is mostly silent.

When they walk into the ER, it’s pretty quiet there, too, Tuesday night that it is. The only person in the waiting room is an old man with a puffy beard and no visible injuries, nodding off in his seat. Steve explains the situation as best he can to the triage nurse as she takes Billy’s temperature, pulse and blood pressure, looking to Billy for confirmation, since the guy can’t do much more than grunt and glare—though it’s a glare worth a thousand words.

The glare’s so intense, in fact, that it’s not until Billy pulls out his wallet to look for his insurance card that Steve notices he’s shaking like a leaf. Billy fumbles with the wallet for long enough that Steve tries to take it from him, but Billy shoulder-checks him, managing to scrape the card out with a half-triumphant, half-miserable grunt. The nurse passes him a clipboard and pen and tells him the wait won’t be long.

They find two chairs in the corner and sit down; Steve’s skin crawls at the cold touch of the chair’s metal arm, the soft crunch of its foam padding. Beside him, Billy is pasty-faced, staring down at the clipboard, pen clutched in his trembling right fist. He carefully transfers the pen to his left hand and starts writing his name on the top of the form, but his hand skids, etching a long blue slash across half of the page. He throws the pen and the clipboard on the ground with a muffled scream. The clatter turns the heads of everyone in the room, briefly.

“Okay then,” Steve says slowly. Billy breathes harshly next to him, fists clenched on his knees. After a minute, Steve gets up and retrieves the clipboard and the pen. He sits down, just looking at the form, then very gently nudges Billy with his elbow; Billy still flinches a bit, ducking his head like a cowering dog. Steve pretends not to notice, but his heart hurts. “You wanna dictate?”

A jerky nod.

“Billy or William?” Steve wonders aloud.

“Billy,” comes the muffled reply.

Steve writes his name down. “Date of birth?” 

“June 28, ‘67.” Billy leans closer so they can both see what Steve’s writing.

“Who’s your emergency contact?”

Billy’s quiet for a minute. Then he mumbles, “Neil Hargrove,” offering a work and phone number, correcting Steve when he writes down a 9 instead of a 5.

As they go through the form—listing off all Billy’s new medications and medical issues—Steve becomes conscious of the warmth of Billy’s body, melting slowly into his side. It’s not enough that anyone would notice, with the pretext of the forms, but when Steve peeks over at him, he’s stopped shaking.

They’re barely halfway through the form when Billy’s name is called and he shoots to his feet, allowing himself to be guided back through the sliding doors. His posture isn’t too different from the time he faced down a forty-foot meat monster.

So Steve waits. After a while, a young woman rushes in to join the old man on the other side of the room, and they murmur anxiously together. Steve flips through an issue of _Sports Illustrated_ but can’t find the will to read any of the words. He gets up, stretches, crosses over to the vending machine; coins clink in the machine and it spits out a Coke. Steve’s still sipping it when the sound of a siren outside magnifies and then cuts off, when paramedics wheel in a teenage boy on a stretcher—God, he’s Dustin’s age, yelling and crying in some combination of drunkenness and pain. A woman wearing pajamas under her coat comes in after them, and she tells the kid, “Goddamn you,” and, “I love you, Kenny, you’re going to be fine.”

The last time Steve was in this room, he’d had the kind of night that made an ER visit look like grocery shopping. There had been black dust on his skin, gasoline in his shoes, more black gunk streaked on his forearms from boosting kids out of the tunnel. He couldn’t 100% see through his swollen right eye. Hopper had brought him, but he hadn’t been able to stay; Steve was just one of a whole list of errands—all the kids had to be returned home with some explanation, including Billy, who at that point was belligerently half-conscious, unable to stay upright. Hopper had said he’d be back as soon as he could. So Steve had sat alone in a thinly padded chair and filled out his form and fought to stay awake as he waited to be told, yep, he had a concussion, to get five stitches through the gash on his hairline where the plate had shattered. And when it was over, he’d waited another hour before anyone had come for him.

Billy doesn’t have to wait. He walks back through those sliding doors with a cleaned-up face and a roll of gauze in his hand, and when Steve asks, he bares his teeth in a brief, wide grin that shows off his swollen purple gums, the crooked wire, like a straightened paper clip, holding his replanted tooth in line with the others.

“Whoa.” Steve kind of wants to look longer, kind of doesn’t. “Is that, uh. How long—?”

“Splint comes off in ten days,” Billy grumbles, making a beeline for the exit. “I gotta get a root canal.”

“Ouch.” But Steve’s proud of himself. He basically saved Billy’s tooth.

Back at Billy’s place, there’s still a light on in one of the rooms, colors flashing on the window from a TV set. Billy lingers in the car; in the glow of the streetlamps Steve can see his hands clenched once more on his knees.

“Hey,” Steve ventures. “You wanna watch a movie?”

Billy turns to him slowly. “What movie?”

“It’s this weird one Robin told me to watch. Harold and somebody.”

“Well, if Robin said so,” Billy mutters.

“You in or out?”

Billy turns to look at the house for a moment. Then, fake-casual, he says, “A’right, Harrington. Might as well see how the other half lives.”

It’s not until they’re almost to Steve’s house that Billy thinks to ask, “Your folks home?”

“My mom is. But she sleeps like the dead, and she doesn’t care what I do anyway.”

Billy mutters something Steve can’t decipher.

Driving through Loch Nora, hearing Billy’s noises of appreciation-slash-judgment at the increasing size of the houses, Steve starts to second-guess himself. They pull down Steve’s driveway, and he’s sure Billy would wolf-whistle if his mouth wasn’t all jacked up. As Steve locks the car, watching Billy traipse up to the front door, he wonders if he really wants Billy in his private space.

Fortunately, though, Billy tones it down when they step into the dark, quiet house. “Shoes,” Steve says, pointing to the cubby to the left, toeing his own sneakers off. Billy rolls his eyes but crouches down to unlace his boots.

“Am I gonna get the grand tour?” asks Billy, voice pitched low.

“Maybe later,” Steve hedges, leading him into the den. Ribbing aside, Billy seems happy enough to collapse on the couch there when Steve points to it, head dipping wearily back. Steve pokes the VHS into the player and plunks down in the La-Z-Boy, swinging his legs up.

The movie is fucking weird, but it’s kinda nice, soothing, to look at, the contrast between the dimness of the sadsack protagonist’s big old house and the greenness of the wide open fields and roads. It doesn’t take long for Billy to comment, “Look, Harrington, it’s you,” snorting at his own joke, although the only things Steve has in common with Harold is that they’re both rich and skinny. “What about the hair?” says Billy with his hands held out, all wide-eyed innocence.

“How fucking dare you?” Steve throws a pillow at him, then winces when he remembers Billy’s injury, but luckily it glances off his arm.

Later, when Harold bangs the old lady, Steve gets to say, “Look Billy, it’s _you_!”, thinking of Karen Wheeler, among others. And for a second Billy looks like he wants to hit Steve, but then he breaks down laughing, these semi-hysterical hissing snickers, and Steve feels good and doesn’t regret anything.

Billy dozes off a while after that, so Steve’s alone when Harold rushes Maude to the hospital, when a song plays that aches from head to toe— _trouble, trouble can’t you see, you’re eating my heart away and there’s nothing much left of me_ —and Steve blinks back tears for the first time in a year. The credits roll, and he gets to his feet, drapes a fringed blanket over Billy. Switches _Harold and Maude_ out for _The Pink Panther_ and falls asleep to that. 

He wakes up in the La-Z-Boy with a crick in his neck. Weak light filters in through the one little window to the right of him, highlighting the dust motes that drift through the air. The TV buzzes, tape long over. On the couch, Billy is curled up small, same as he was that time Steve barged into his room, tucked into the crevice between the couch cushions. Steve wonders if he’s always slept that way. He’s taken the pillow Steve threw at him and bunched it up to keep his mouth upturned, untouched; his fat bottom lip hangs down slightly.

Then the door to the den creaks, and Steve and his mom share this moment of eye contact where Mom appears—and Steve thinks he must wear the same expression—strangely stunned. She must have come in to turn off the TV.

“Hey,” Steve says quietly.

“Good morning,” Mom answers, in that same hushed tone. She glances at Billy. “Is this your friend from the gas station?”

Steve feels a rush of anxiety. Last night, he didn’t really consider the possibility that his mom would meet Billy. “Yeah,” he admits. He gets up and turns off the TV, accidentally knocking a VHS case off the table.

Billy jerks awake, flinging the blanket away from him and rolling straight up until he’s almost crouching on his knees. His dazed eyes flick between Steve and his mom, but at least he’s looking at them and not some invisible horror. The split and the bruising around his mouth look ugly this soon after the injury. Dried blood is still visible smeared down the front of his clothes.

“Good morning,” Mom tells Billy, a questioning lilt to her voice; she throws a glance Steve’s way with too much understanding in it, and too little.

“Mom, this is Billy,” Steve starts, remembering his manners. “Billy, this is my mom.”

Billy blinks. Mom steps toward him and holds out her hand, which Billy shakes with the air of a child simply taking whatever’s offered him. Steve sees the moment when Mom clocks the scars on Billy’s hand, sees her pause on the inkblot on his cheek on her way up to his eyes. Ah, fuck.

“Pleased to meetcha,” Billy says, voice rough from sleep. 

“Would you boys like some breakfast?” Mom turns around and heads out of the room without waiting for an answer. “Come get some coffee, if you like.”

“Sorry about that,” Steve tells Billy, when she’s gone. 

Billy shakes his head a little, then gives Steve a speculative look. “Your mom’s quite the looker, Harrington,” he murmurs. Seething, Steve hunts around until he finds another pillow and swings it at Billy’s torso. Billy grabs it and they play a very brief tug of war, until Billy gets bored, right as Steve is starting to win. He drops the pillow, strolling out of the room like he’s lived here for years. Steve takes a minute to catch his breath, quell the squirming in his gut.

Steve finds them both in the kitchen, Mom handing Billy a cup of coffee. He says, “Thank you, ma’am,” takes a sip, declares it the best coffee he’s ever had. Mom grins indulgently, cutting an orange into slices. Steve mimes gagging himself but no one pays him any mind. Mom asks Billy polite but curious questions, pausing occasionally to ask Steve to grab her a pan, and Billy responds in uncharacteristic detail, leading into a lively conversation about Californian politics. Steve can only watch in horror. This is just like when Mom met Robin, except a hundred times worse, because it’s Billy. And Billy—he’s perched confidently on a barstool, leaning on his elbow with a small, charming grin. Acting way too much like his old self, especially considering what happened last night.

“How many eggs do each of you want? Toast?”

There’s an awkward pause, Mom turning around to look at them, and Billy says, “Uh, no thank you, ma’am.” And he flashes another grin, just long enough to give her a glimpse of the still bruised and bloody mess inside his mouth.

“Oh, goodness.” To her credit, Mom doesn’t recoil. “What happened there?”

Billy does this chagrined little chuckle that grates on Steve’s nerves. “Went on a bad date with gravity.” His face is relaxed, but sitting next to him at the bar, Steve can see his fingers clamped on the edge of his stool. “Water on the floor,” he adds, off-handed, or trying to be.

Mom glances at Steve again, with that understanding, and Steve understands something too, even if it’s not the whole story.

“Well,” says Mom. “You like smoothies?”

Billy looks taken aback. “Sure.”

So Mom starts pulling frozen berries and yogurt and spinach out of the fridge, and she whips up a smoothie for Billy in two minutes, like mother of the goddamn year. And Billy sips it easy as that, when Steve’s had no success getting him to eat anything since that day in the diner.

Conversation resumes as Mom returns to the stove, interrogating Billy in the subtlest, most gracious way possible, and he responds in kind. When she asks Billy about his plans—assuming, probably, that Steve and Billy were in the same grade—he rolls off a smooth response about a gap year. It’s only when she asks what Billy’s parents do that his smile grows a little forced. “My pops is in refrigeration. Stepmom’s part time at the supermarket.” 

“Oh, how nice,” says Mom. “Such essential industries, both of those.”

Steve sits silently, growing more and more uncomfortable as the exchange continues. His mom serves him up a spinach omelette and toast, and he eats quickly, fixating on the food.

Finally—finally!—Steve’s mom tells them she must be off; she’s having coffee with some lady who’s running for mayor, but she tells Billy he’s welcome anytime. Steve gets up and stacks dishes in the sink. As soon as the door shuts behind Mom, Billy turns slowly to Steve, giving the space around them a wide, appraising look as he does so.

“Hot damn, Harrington.” That charming look has slipped off his face, a calculating one in its place.

“What?” Steve says, rinsing the purplish residue out of Billy’s glass.

“I’m ready for my tour,” Billy announces, smirking. He doesn’t wait for an answer, just hops off the stool and strolls through the dining room and down the hall to the living room, leaning in to inspect framed photos, tap on glass sculptures, drag his fingers over furniture. Steve feels compelled to follow him, probably some inborn rich person’s need to supervise—never mind that he hardly cares for anything in the house, is just giving Billy an audience. In the sunroom, Billy pauses at the sight of the pool through the windows, then turns on his heel and tromps back through the house, jogs up the staircase. 

At the top of the stairs there’s a family photo, taken when Steve was fourteen. He’s wearing a suit in it, and he hadn’t really figured out what to do with his hair. Billy taps his fingernail on the glass over Steve’s dad’s face, says, “Where’s he at?”

Steve pauses on the stairs. “Away on business, like always.”

“That why your old lady’s got no ring?”

He’s on to the next thing before Steve can process that, pushing his way into Steve’s room. Steve hadn’t even noticed Mom wasn’t wearing her wedding ring. (Billy would have a radar for shit like that, the homewrecker.) No matter what’s going on in his parents’ marriage, surely Mom wouldn’t go about town without it—people would talk. And anyway, it’s not like Steve cares either way. Would probably be better for everyone if they split up.

In Steve’s room, Billy makes a slow circuit. He picks up Steve’s old sports trophies one by one, blowing some dust away; presses some buttons on Steve’s alarm clock; opens his closet, pushes the hangers back and forth; weighs Steve’s granddad’s ashtray in his hand.

“Are you done?” Steve says finally.

“I don’t know what I expected,” says Billy, almost to himself. “There’s nothing of you in here.”

“Excuse me?”

Billy flicks Steve’s desk lamp on and off. “I’m looking for Stevie, but I can’t find him.”

Steve blinks. “Do you know how freaking creepy you sound?”

Suddenly Billy’s leaning over Steve’s desk, pulling open the top drawer, where he stuffs his dumb sketches.

“Stop,” Steve protests as Billy pulls them out. On top is the picture Steve drew yesterday evening, with the cold blue eyes and the wall of fire. Steve snatches it away, but Billy just picks up the next one, a sheet with a bunch of random stuff, a dog that looks more like a bear, a lopsided basketball, a dead-eyed Raggedy Ann of a girl, all those things wreathed together in a swarm of black squiggles. Under that is another one that’s just black squiggles filling up the page. That was a bad day.

Steve tries to push Billy out of the way, tries to close the drawer, but Billy plants his feet. “No way, José,” Billy laughs. “Finally found something good.”

Hot-faced, Steve crosses his arms. “I know they’re bad. I just draw sometimes when I’m bored.”

Billy stares down at a drawing of the pool through Steve’s window; he’d colored in the whole sheet in bright blue, inside the pool and out.

“They aren’t bad,” Billy says.

“Shut up.”

“I mean, your proportions are shit, but this would make cool album artwork.” Billy flips to the next drawing, a massive wave of squiggles poised to crash, a tiny stick man standing fearless on the shore.

“Just stop.” Steve finally manages to dislodge Billy and stuff the drawings back into his desk. He wants to shred them instead. 

Billy eyes him thoughtfully. “Guess rich people are fucked up just like the rest of us.”

“No shit. You want a gold star?”

Billy smirks, but it looks almost sad. He sits down on Steve’s bed, rakes his fingers over the bedspread. “All these big rooms and still no space for little Stevie.”

Steve’s face burns. “Seriously, man, knock it off.”

“Your mama hardly seems to know you exist.”

There’s a lurch in Steve’s gut like he drank half a gallon of water on an empty stomach. An ugly laugh gushes out through the sickened gurgle at the top of his throat. “Really? You’re telling me _my_ home life is screwed up?”

Billy narrows his eyes, body going stiff. “‘Fraid I don’t know what you mean.” 

“I think you do, Mister, Mister Slipped-and-Fell. Mister No-Hospitals. Your dad looks like a fucking serial killer.”

There’s a second’s pause. Then Billy’s arm swoops to the right, grasps the ashtray on the windowsill, and hurls it, missing Steve’s head by maybe a foot. Steve stands there, reeling, while Billy crosses the room, stalks downstairs. After a moment the front door slams.

Steve stays where he is for a long time, staring at the small crater the ashtray left in the wall, the ring of crushed plaid wallpaper. Then he crawls into bed, pulling the blanket over his head, curling up small like Billy does when he sleeps. And if he cries a little, angrily swiping the tears as quick as they come, there’s no one around to know.

—

Billy doesn’t work again until tomorrow, and Steve’s glad, because he doesn’t want to see that prick. He fumes about it the whole time he works Wednesday night. He’s so pissy, in fact, that Craig—this snippy little dude Steve works with on evening shifts, who looks like the dictionary definition of an antisocial nerd—tells Steve to rewind tapes and leave customer service to him. Steve just feels—small and pointless, and mad about it. All he’s ever done is try to help Billy and be his friend, and where has it gotten him? Harassed and insulted and just-about-brained with a heavy object.

He gets home that night to find Mom in the living room, reading in pajamas. She looks up and says, “Your friend Billy called.” 

For a second, Steve’s heart lifts, thinking Billy might want to apologize. Maybe Steve’s been right to try with him, to expect change. To think he _did_ change.

“He leave a message?” Steve croaks, trying and failing to sound nonchalant.

“He wanted to let you know he won’t need a ride tomorrow,” Mom says. “He said he got a car.” And Steve just stands there, until Mom prompts, “Isn’t that wonderful? I guess you can catch up on some sleep now.”

She smiles. And Steve nods and smiles back, before mumbling goodnight, sleepwalking upstairs.

So that’s fine, right? Fine if Billy doesn’t want him around, if he makes up excuses to keep Steve away. Steve doesn’t need to waste his time babysitting that asshole. He’s got other shit going on. Except, he thinks as he listlessly brushes his teeth, shucks off his clothes, and crawls back into bed, except he really, really doesn’t. He has no clue what to do with himself anytime he isn’t at work or at Billy’s work or running errands for the kids. It’s like there’s a deep pit inside him where someone else’s dreams and goals would live.

Soon, Robin and Nancy will graduate, and they’ll both get into good colleges, and it’ll just be Steve and these kids who barely need him as it is, who themselves will leave for college in a few short years, and Steve will be right where he is, working some shitty retail job. He’s known all that for months now. But somehow when he’s with Billy that stuff doesn’t matter so much. Because Billy is stuck here too.

By the next night, he’s cycled through anger and betrayal and landed on worry. It’s one in the morning and he’s pacing around his room, already doubled up on clonazepam but no calmer for it, his mind replaying how Billy shook in the ER, how he leaned on Steve, not twelve hours before lobbing an ashtray at him. (Or, okay, lobbing it in his direction.) He wants to focus on how fucked up that was, but instead he keeps thinking that Billy’s reaction confirmed it, that someone in that house—three guesses who—knocked his tooth out of his mouth. Steve contemplates the kind of person who would beat on a teenager with a scarred lung and nerve damage, and he cycles all the way back to anger.

He sits down at his desk, pulls out paper and pencils. Draws a tooth with overlarge pointy roots like an ugly crown; a staring blue eye in its center; a red teardrop gathered beneath it. He thinks, _cool album artwork_.

Next thing he knows he’s got his car keys in his hand, he’s padding down the stairs, pulling his shoes on. He’s just—gonna check. That Billy got to work okay.

The treetops shudder and sway. The roads aren’t so deserted as you’d expect at this hour in Hawkins; Steve passes a few cars, a pack of teens straggling along on the side of the road, talking in loud voices. At the Quick Mart, there’s one truck, a dusty red F100 parked along the side of the building. Steve parks beside it and slowly approaches the store, not sure if he’ll go in or not.

Through the glass, Billy’s head appears over the shelves, over by the drink refrigerators. He looks pissed off, shoulders moving like he’s sweeping or mopping. Steve looks around for the customer whose truck that must be, but he can’t see anyone from here.

Steve looks at Billy for a long time, his short curls that bounce when he moves, how he pauses to rub his tired eyes with the back of his hand, avoiding his battered mouth. This guy’s got violence baked into him, but Steve can’t help it. He walks in.

Billy looks over at the sound of the bell, goes still. Then slowly he turns and says, “Hey.”

The lack of hostility, the acknowledgement, catch Steve off guard, and he says, “Hey,” back. Then, coming closer, wrinkling his nose: “Is that puke?”

“Little shits think it’s Halloween already,” Billy grumbles, yanking the mop upwards and dunking it in a bucket. A yellow WET FLOOR sign sits like a partition between the two of them. “Somebody should teach ‘em to hold their liquor.”

“Like you, Keg King?”

Billy looks up at him then, really looks, and Steve doesn’t know how to read it at all. After a moment Billy shrugs, makes another pass with the mop.

It’s silent for a few seconds. Steve scuffs his shoe against the floor, says, “How’d you get here?”

Again, Billy’s head jerks up, and he looks at Steve like he must be concussed. “I drove.”

“You—” Steve turns around with his torso, raises his hand, drops it back down. “That truck is yours?”

“Yup.”

“I thought you said you were only halfway there."

Billy shrugs carefully. “Old man said he’d match me.” He watches Steve as though waiting for him to comment on that. Steve doesn’t.

“Cool, man, that’s great,” he says instead. He feels wrong-footed now—it literally hadn’t crossed his mind that Billy might have a ride. “What year?”

“‘67.” Billy plunges the mop down into the bucket and begins wheeling it toward the back room, while Steve trails awkwardly behind him.

“Same year you were born,” he remembers. Billy throws him a look.

“She needs work, but.”

Steve breathes a slight laugh. “It suits you.”

Billy huffs, ducks through the employees-only door. Just two days ago, Steve would have followed him, giving him as much shit as possible, but now he hangs back, shifting from foot to foot. He wonders if he should leave, but then Billy reappears. While they look at each other, Steve’s filled up, balloon-like, with a sense of redundancy. Billy doesn’t need anything from him, anymore.

“Well, I guess I’ll—” He feels too weird and weightless to pretend he had a reason to come in.

But Billy cuts him off. “Can you help me pick this shit up?” He gestures toward the shelves near the refrigerators, where a bunch of merchandise has been swept to the floor, probably by those same drunk kids. Steve stares at him wide-eyed. He doesn’t think Billy’s ever asked him for a single thing.

“Y-yeah, okay.”

As they crouch on the floor, picking up packets of chips and crackers and putting them back on the shelves, Billy says, “I shouldn’t—” and then stops.

“You—shouldn’t,” Steve repeats, confused.

Billy’s voice gets low and rough and kind of strangled. “Shouldn’t have done that.”

Steve lets that soak into him. He wants to say, _No you shouldn’t have_ , but what comes out instead is, “That sounded like it hurt.”

Billy exhales loudly, this sound that doesn’t know if it’s a laugh or a sigh or an angry huff. “Yeah.”

The bell chimes and another couple teens come in, a guy and a girl—Steve thinks she might be the younger sister of somebody he hooked up with briefly in his sophomore year. They don’t look drunk, but the forbidding look Billy gives them as he straightens and crosses the room is hilarious, especially considering he can’t be more than two years their senior. The kids buy some cigarettes and pay for their gas and then leave.

“So, uh.” Steve crams the last couple packs of Bugles on the shelves and moves slowly to join Billy at the counter, adjusting a couple items as he goes. “I really need to start sleeping or my life is gonna fall apart, but. You wanna come over tomorrow?”

By some miracle they both have Halloween off, and Steve knows Billy ain’t going to any party. “Trick-or-treating in Loch Nora is kind of a fun scene,” he continues, then winces, feeling like a dork. “We get like two hundred kids every year.”

A confusing mess of emotion seems to pass over Billy’s face before he smushes it down. He looks away, clears his throat. “Yeah, whatever, Harrington.”

“Come over at seven?”

“Fine.” Billy’s already opening his book.

“‘Kay. See you then.”

“Go home,” Billy says, waving him off.

On the way out, Steve runs his hand along the flank of Billy’s plain, wide truck, with its chipped paint, and its spaciousness. It does suit him, somehow. Steve looks at their two oversized vehicles sitting there side by side and thinks: _Holy shit, we’re actually friends_.


	7. TREAT

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, I wasn't sure if I'd get this out before Halloween, but here it is! I had a lot of fun writing this one, so I hope you enjoy it too.

Steve hefts a pumpkin in his hands, turning it from side to side. The afternoon sun shines down on his shoulders, thawing the late-October chill.

The pumpkin is squat, and kind of lumpy, with an off-color patch toward the base, but pickings are slim this late in the game. It’s kind of cute, anyway. He tucks it under one arm, crossing over to the cluster of smaller, one-dollar pumpkins.

The McCorkle Pumpkin Patch is lively today with what Steve calls the ‘weekday crowd’—stay-at-home moms, little kids, old people. A toddler barrels into his legs in her haste to snatch up an especially teeny pumpkin, and Steve smiles, waving off her mother’s apology. He picks out a second pumpkin and walks over to the tent pitched nearby, where a small line has formed. There are crates full of peach preserves and canned tomatoes, a table laden with seran-wrapped pies. Steve’s stomach growls, and the elderly woman in front of him offers him a sweaty-looking string cheese from her purse.

When he’s paid for the pumpkins, he loads them up in the back of the Caravan, mumbling, “Buckle up, kiddos,” having a laugh at his own expense. Outside like this, with the blue sky, and the crisp air, it feels like something good is gonna happen.

The pumpkin patch is on the outskirts of town, and Steve takes the long way home, driving down the country road with his window cracked, humming along to folk rock. He does a double take when a familiar truck appears, parked at the edge of a long, yellowed field. He slows, squinting. How many red F100s from the ‘60s must there be in Hawkins? Steve doesn’t know, but the drippy pattern of rust is distinctive. Just last night, he traced it with his fingers.

“What are you up to, now, huh?” he muses, rolling the Caravan into the field, coming to a stop next to the truck. He peers curiously into the window, but there’s nothing inside but a crumpled water bottle and some shabby upholstery. He makes a mental note to buy Billy a hula girl.

There’s a path mowed through the tall grass and sprawling goldenrod, winding around the edge of the field and into the surrounding woods. Steve follows it at an easy pace, wondering whose property this is. He shivers a bit as the temperature drops at the tree line, sticking his hands in his pockets, but continues down the trail, crunching thick piles of leaves underfoot, breathing the musky-sweet smell of their decay. After a few minutes, he catches a flash of blond hair glinting in the sun. He peers over the side of a small ravine to see Billy perched on the exposed root of a tree, a book balanced on his knees, in a perfectly round patch of light.

“Who knew Billy Hargrove liked nature?”

Billy’s head whips around, squinting. “You stalking me now, Harrington?” he calls, when his eyes find Steve. “Oh wait, you already were.”

Steve clambers down the side of the ravine, squatting on a flattish rock on the edge of the little creek, no more than three feet from Billy. “Went on a pumpkin run, saw your truck.”

“The fuck is a pumpkin run?” Billy closes his book and leans forward, elbow propped on his knee, chin propped on his hand. The orangey light softens the bruise on his face, the still-healing cut on his lip.

“Mom decided she wants some last-minute jack o’lanterns. Said the porch looked unbalanced.” It was really more of an offhand comment, but Steve has been restless today, wanting for once to _do_ something with his time off work.

“Pff.” Billy’s eyes drift down from Steve’s face to somewhere around his chest.

“What?” Steve glances down—he’s wearing a maroon turtleneck from the back of his closet, and it’s gotten kind of tight, but somehow felt right for today.

Billy shakes himself; something sad(?) passes over his face, and is gone. “Nothin’.” He digs a pack of gum out of his jacket pocket and puts a piece in his mouth. His jaw works slowly, not really chewing, just letting it marinate in his spit, and they sit there a minute, listening to the rush of the creek. Reddish leaves flutter down from the trees to be carried downstream like little boats. One touches down in Billy’s hair, so lightly he doesn’t seem to feel it, and Steve reaches out without thinking. 

Billy jerks, throwing up a defensive forearm.

“Oh. Sorry,” Steve says, withdrawing. Billy’s posture stays crunched, shoulders curved forward, elbows drawn in. “It’s just, you’ve got a leaf—”

Billy snorts, raking fingers through his hair. His shoulders relax. The leaf ends up on Steve’s knee, and he plucks it between his fingers, pulls it apart into sections. The air feels charged, calm and tense at the same time. Steve’s heart thumps, confused.

“Soo,” he says after a moment. “I was gonna head back and carve some pumpkins. You wanna come with?” It’s still a few hours before they agreed to meet, but Billy doesn’t seem to have any big plans.

“Sure.” Billy stands up, tucks his book under his arm, brushes forest detritus off of his clothes. As always, he wears layers, leather jacket over a flannel shirt over a holey t-shirt. Steve gets a bizarre urge to fit his hands to Billy’s sides, find the shape of him inside the fabric; he puts his hands in his pockets instead.

They follow the path back through the woods and the field, and Steve gets in his minivan, Billy in his truck. 

“Follow me?” Steve calls, and Billy nods. 

When they arrive, Mom’s gone out, probably to grab stuff for dinner. Billy trails Steve as he walks around to the back of the house, where he plunks the two pumpkins down on the grass.

“I’m gonna go get some carving tools,” Steve tells him. “You, uh, want something to drink, or anything?”

“Water?” Billy says after a second, uncharacteristically awkward, staring off into the trees. There’s something so surreal about him being here, in the daytime, for no reason but to spend time with Steve. _God, what?_

“Uh, yeah, sure. Be right back.” 

Steve goes inside and finds a couple of serrated knives, a big spoon, and some newspaper. Carrying all those things _and_ Billy’s glass of water is kind of a juggling act, and he has to clamp one of the knives between his teeth to get the back door open. But he makes it out without stabbing himself, leaves the knives and spoon and newspaper on the grass with the pumpkins.

A few yards away, Billy stands by the pool, staring into it like it’ll tell him his future. He looks up with unreadable eyes when Steve hands him the water. “Thanks.”

“No problem. You ready to carve some pumpkins?”

Billy waves a dismissive arm. “Yeah, I’m not ten.” His throat bobs as he drains the glass.

Steve rolls his eyes. “Whatever you say, man.” He walks back over to where he dumped everything and spreads the newspaper out on the grass, then folds down cross-legged on the ground. He braces the smaller pumpkin against one of his knees and plunges a knife into the top of it, sawing a rough circumference. He’s never been great at crafts, or carved a pumpkin ever, but it’s nice to do something with his hands. He’s becoming one with the pumpkin, or something, he thinks as he scoops its guts out.

While he’s slicing out one triangular eye, Billy wanders back into view, kind of hovers over him. Steve’s knife slides too far. “You wanna sit down?”

“Nope,” says Billy.

So what happens is Steve sits there daubed in a fair amount of pumpkin slime, carving an asymmetrical jack o’lantern while Billy looms above him and makes comments. 

“My god, Harrington. Put that pumpkin out of its misery.”

“Shut the fuck up, Billy.” Steve tilts the thing up and squints down at its grinning face. One eye is, like, twice the size of the other. He sighs in defeat. “No, yeah, you’re right, this pumpkin wants to die.”

For the second jack o’lantern, he finds a permanent marker and actually sketches a face before getting any knives involved. Billy suggests downward-slanting angry eyes; Steve accommodates, then names the pumpkin after him. While he’s carving, Steve hears the faint but unmistakable sound of his mom’s car in the driveway, and after a moment Mom pokes her head out the back door to call hello.

“Hiya, Mrs. Harrington,” Billy calls in that too-smooth voice from the other day, and Steve sighs internally. Mom smiles a very indulgent smile and goes inside to cook.

Pumpkin Billy turns out better than its predecessor. Billy even says so, in his way, sighing, “I guess I claim him.”

By the time Steve is finished, the sun has begun to set, the sky a riot of vivid blue-green and orange-pink. He stands up and stretches his back. “Wow, it’s getting chilly. C’mon, let’s go in.”

Inside, there’s jazz playing, and it smells incredible—cinnamon, allspice and citrus permeating the whole house. Mom’s gliding around in a long, gauzy black dress and silver filigree earrings, pouring rum into the brewing cider, stirring the butternut soup, telling them about the space shuttle that just today rocketed into orbit. After years with her barely around, and Steve always at parties, he had forgotten, but Mom really likes Halloween. And she’s fun like this, lighting candles with dramatic flair, bullying them into choosing costume pieces from the storage bin she dragged down from the attic. (Steve picks a bandit mask; Billy, devil horns, grinning small and bitter.)

They eat casually at the bar in the kitchen, Billy quietly spooning soup, Steve soaking it up with hunks of baguette, half-listening while Mom retells another story she heard on the radio. Steve’s reminded forcefully of childhood sleepovers, when Tommy H. or somebody would come over, and Mom would order them pizza and let them stay up late. Then he realizes that’s what Mom thinks this is—thinks _Billy_ is. Steve’s friend.

An ache swells between his ribs—maybe happy, maybe sad—that makes him grateful for his mug of spiked cider, filling that raw place with sweetness and heat.

After they eat, a few of Mom’s project-people come over: a nervous, childless young couple who just moved to the neighborhood a month ago, and a slightly kooky older woman who lives alone. As Mom introduces them all, the newcomers spare Billy’s hurt face a few nervous looks, but Mom’s playful spirit is infectious, and for a while, they all sit in the front room, drinking cider and chatting. Every couple of minutes, Steve or his mom gets up to greet trick-or-treaters. The sight of them, little ones dressed up like ballerinas and bunnies, witches and wookiees, so excited and easy to please, deepens that sad-happy ache. 

It’s Steve who answers when the nerd herd appears on the doorstep, only Dustin bothering to say, “Trick or treat.” Steve twitches a little, stepping out and pulling the door almost shut behind him. The kids are all over the place, costume-wise: Dustin’s got an elaborate homemade robot thing going on, with a lot of brightly painted cardboard and tinfoil. Lucas is, Steve thinks, Han Solo. Mike’s scowling ass threw on a vampire cape and teeth and called it a day. And Max is dressed like a pirate, with a red bandana wrapped around her head and a sash tied over a too-big button-down.

“Aren’t you all getting a little old for this?” Steve says, tipping candy from a plastic cauldron into Max’s bag.

“There you go again with the social norms.” Dustin’s cardboard helmet wobbles dangerously as he shakes his head. Then his nostrils flare. “Holy crap, something smells amazing. Hi, Mrs. Harrington!” He tries to shove his head into the house, but Steve pushes him back.

“She’s got company, doofus.” He stuffs generous handfuls of candy into the kids’ bags, trying to distract them.

“Steve just gave me three full size Snickers,” Lucas says in amazement.

“Hey, you only gave me two,” Mike accuses.

Max stares, shrewdly and momentarily, at Billy’s truck in the driveway. She gives Steve a look he can’t quite read, then says, “Come on, guys, we’ve got more houses to hit.”

“You make it sound like you’re doing crimes.”

“You’re the one dressed for a robbery,” Dustin scoffs, but he allows himself to be herded away. “Later, Steve-o!”

Steve sags in gratitude when they’re gone, adjusting his mask. He’s just not prepared to field any reactions to the Billy Hargrove situation. He sees another troop of kids coming up the driveway, so he sits down on the steps for a minute, watching the bricks flicker with reflected light from his two jack o’lanterns.

Back inside, the male half of the young couple, who Mom coerced into wearing a clown wig, is stumbling through a long story about his job at, like, a legal firm. Some kind of firm. Everyone is nodding and laughing politely, including Billy, only kind of… _exaggeratedly_. Billy tips cider into his mouth, dribbling some on his shirt, and when he looks up at Steve, pink-cheeked, devil-horned and smirking, it’s abruptly clear that he is drunk. Steve’s not sure how it happened—he only saw Billy refill his mug once—but it undoubtedly did.

Almost as soon as he sits back down, Billy’s leaning over the wooden arms of their adjacent chairs, pulling on Steve’s sleeve, going, “Pssst, Harrington,” much less quietly than he thinks he is. It’s kind of—adorable.

Steve raises his eyebrows at him. “Yes?”

“C’mere.” And Billy stands up and drags Steve along with him, out of the room and into the kitchen. 

“Some friends your mama’s got,” he continues in that too-loud whisper, ladling more cider into his mug. “Think that dumbass was trying to sell me life insurance. Me! Do I look like a dude with a long life ahead of him?”

“I think you’ve had enough of that,” Steve says, grabbing the ladle and putting it back in the pot. “Don’t you have a thing with your liver?”

Billy scowls at him, but his eyes are too hazy to really pull it off. “Are you a doctor? Do you have a doctorate in medicine?”

Steve just looks at him, eyebrows slowly climbing toward his hairline.

“That a no? Then shut your trap.” Billy knocks back the cider. “Come on, I wanna look at the stars.”

Swallowing his concern, Steve mock-gasps, following him down the hall, through the sunroom and into the yard. Billy is already way too familiar with the layout of Steve’s house. “Billy Hargrove stargazes? What next?”

“Billy Hargrove does whatever the hell he wants.” Billy swings around and spreads his arms wide, walking backwards towards the pool. Watch him crack his skull on the concrete.

“Oh, Jesus,” Steve says, hurrying to catch up. “Drunk you talks about himself in the third person. I don’t know how to deal with this.”

Billy drops into one of the pool loungers and stares up at the purple-black, star-flecked sky, sipping from his mug with both hands curled around it. Steve throws himself down on the next chair over, asks, “You know any constellations?” 

“Nah,” says Billy. “Mom was into astrology shit, but I never paid attention.” Then he clamps his mouth shut, eyes wide, like the words just popped out on their own.

“Oh,” Steve says. He’s so curious, but he knows better than to push on mom stuff. “I know some. Boy Scout.”

Billy gasps, turning to him with a delighted grin. “Of _course_ you’re a Boy Scout.”

“Yeah, there’s uh,” he squints up, pointing, “there’s the big dipper.”

“I know _that_ one,” Billy says, disgusted.

“And there’s Cepheus! It kinda looks like a shitty kid’s picture of a house.”

Billy leans closer to Steve, to look where he’s looking. Steve traces the points of the constellation with his finger.

“I guess,” Billy says doubtfully, leaning away. “I don’t know, man. I’d rather the stars just be stars.” 

“Who even are you?” Steve shakes his head, smiling wryly, settling back into his lounger.

They fall comfortably quiet, kids’ elated voices drifting over from the street. In his peripheral vision, Steve sees Billy lean forward. He’s looking at the steam rising from the pool, and with the booze in his system, the longing on his face is easy to read. It’s so weird, even now, to see that on Billy Hargrove, a look that makes his too-sharp eyes go soft. 

Billy worked as a lifeguard, grew up near a beach. Dude probably likes swimming even better than reading.

“It’s heated, you know.”

Slowly, Billy’s head turns, and his eyes narrow. “What?”

“The pool, it’s heated,” says Steve. “Mom actually swims a lot, so it’s ready to go.”

“Great for you, Harrington, another sign of your sickening wealth.” 

“No, asshole, I mean, you wanna swim? I could lend you some trunks.” Watching Billy’s free arm wind instinctively around his torso, Steve adds, “And, uh, a t-shirt?”

Billy glares at him, as though Steve’s committed a terrible crime in acknowledging Billy’s self-consciousness. Steve puts his hands up, like, _Whatever, man_ , reaches back and down to tear up some grass. After a minute, though, Billy drains his mug and says, “Yes.”

“Yes?”

“I want to swim.” 

Steve nods slowly. “Okay, yeah.”

They go inside and upstairs. Mom is laughing loudly, like she’s also had too much to drink. “Who knew those squares had such funny jokes,” Billy mutters on the way up, and Steve snorts. He sifts through his dresser until he finds two pairs of swim trunks, one with green and blue stripes, the other solid orange. After a moment of thought, he holds the orange ones out to Billy, along with a grey Hawkins High t-shirt. Billy's gaze jerks guiltily from where it was fixed on the ashtray crater he left in Steve's wall, and he clutches the bundle of clothes to his chest. “Uh, I’ll go change in the bathroom,” Steve says, keeping his eyes to himself.

He’s startled when he sees, in the bathroom mirror, his own dark eyes gleaming behind the cheap mask. Something about it unsettles him, and he’s glad to pull the thing off. His face in the mirror still looks strange, pale and uncertain. He doesn’t know what to make of it, and he tries to shake it off, stripping quickly and stepping into his trunks.

When Steve exits the bathroom, Billy is pacing restlessly up and down the hall. “How many bedrooms does this place have?” he calls over his shoulder, thundering back down the stairs before Steve can get a look at him. Steve snags a couple of towels out of the closet, follows him down and into the darkness of the yard.

“Oh, fuck, fucking Indiana winters,” Billy swears as he speeds toward the pool.

Steve laughs, racing after him. “Not winter!”

Billy takes a running jump into the pool, a big warm spray misting over Steve, who leaps in immediately after. When they surface, Billy stays close to the water like he’s snuggling down into it. His eyes fall shut and he slowly unfolds until he’s floating on his back. His expression is close to blissful. It’s cute.

“Not too good for my rich guy pool, now, are ya?” Steve teases. Billy flips him off without moving anything but his hand. Steve lets himself float, too. He hasn’t swum since that awkward pool party with the kids in July, and it’s nice, how the water holds him. Strangely, even in the dark like this, he’s spared from that creeping dread he used to feel at the sight of this pool. Maybe it’s the cider. Maybe it’s that enough time has passed. Maybe it’s the guy he’s in here with, who never hesitates to walk through the woods, day or night.

Billy’s drifted to the other side of the pool, nearly motionless in the blue glow, t-shirt billowing beneath him. There’s so much Steve doesn’t understand about him. 

“Okay,” he calls over. “Proposition for you. Truth or dare.”

“Ugh,” groans Billy. “You’re tryna take advantage of me ‘cause I’m buzzed.” His head rolls over toward Steve and he smirks. 

Steve touches his feet to the floor, ignoring the way his heart kicks up. “You’re drunk. And yep.”

“Whatever, Harrington, I’m no pussy.” Billy turns over, paddles closer.

“Well, we’ll see about that. Truth or dare?”

“Truth, bitch.”

Now that Steve has an opening, he doesn’t know where to start. “Uhh. What’s your favorite color?” 

“Really?!”

“Answer the question.” Steve lounges back against the side of the pool, pedaling his feet slowly through the water, watching how the movement throws rippling shadows over Billy’s head and shoulders.

“Blue, I guess,” Billy grudgingly answers.

“How exciting.”

“Ask a boring question, get a boring answer! Truth or dare?” 

“Truth,” Steve says, of course.

“Answer me this, Harrington. Have you ever finished a book? Picture books and school assignments don’t count.”

“Oh, screw you!” Steve sweeps an arm through the water, but Billy dives under, gliding away smooth as a fish before surfacing with a laugh. “Yes. Asshole,” Steve shouts over to him.

Billy swims closer, water dripping from his grin. “Mm-hm, mm-hm. And how many years ago was this?”

“No follow-up questions, dickface. Truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

“Have you ever had a pet?”

Billy stops swimming and his face screws up, childishly disgusted. “Really, man? What is with these questions? Who ‘m I, your international penpal?”

“Just answer it!”

“Christ, okay. Yeah, we had a cat, back home. Well, I guess he belonged to the neighborhood. Scrawny little prick, bite you hard enough to bruise.”

“Huh,” says Steve, absorbing this information. “Sounds like someone else I know.” 

“There was this one time I found, like, a whole litter of kittens in a fuckin’ drain pipe. All squirming and crying. Dad said they’d piss and shit everywhere, and M—” He cuts himself off, and there’s a beat of silence. “Well, point is, I left them. Truth or dare, Harrington?”

“...Truth.”

“Hmmm. When’d you lose your virginity?”

“Fifteen. Maisie Barnes.” She’d had light, curly hair, too, actually—

“Yikes,” Billy’s saying. “Sounds like you got it on with a bale of hay.”

Steve laughs, startled, “Oh, what the fuck?” And then, “Truth or dare, weirdo.”

“ _You’re_ weird. Hay-fucker. And, truth.”

“Did you use to wax your chest?”

That gets him splashed, but it’s warm and kind of nice. “ _Yes_ ,” Billy growls, rocking forward menacingly. “Truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

“You ever go down on somebody?”

“‘Course,” Steve scoffs. But he thinks, suddenly, of a rickety shed at his back, of the soft damp feel of Billy in his jeans, finished already, on his knees with Steve in his mouth; _never got to return the favor_ , like that would’ve been some kind of privilege—and he says, “Truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

“Do you like me?”

They’re suddenly very close. Steve almost blushes at his own question. Through the wet Hawkins High t-shirt, he can see the shape of Billy’s collarbone, the peaks of his nipples. “Not even a little,” Billy says, crossing his arms.

“It’s called truth or dare, Billy, not unconvincing lie or dare.”

“I can say with total honesty that I hate your guts right now.”

“But in general?”

Before he knows what’s happening, hands are pushing down on his shoulders, forcing him underwater. He flails until his head breaks the surface, spluttering and yelling, nose burning with all the water he just inhaled, and he grabs Billy’s wrist before he can escape, shoves him playfully up against the side of the pool.

“Water violence still isn’t an answer,” he pants. Billy mounts a brief struggle, but Steve holds him there, bare chest pressed to Billy’s clothed one. “Come on, you can say it.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Billy spits, looking up at Steve with defiant eyes. He’s solid, and warm, breathing rabbity-fast against Steve. One hand grips Steve’s bicep, hard, but not pushing. “Truth or dare, pretty boy?”

“...Dare.”

Billy’s eyes flicker over Steve’s face, over his mouth, down to where their bodies meet. Steve can’t tell who’s shaking. “I dare you to—”

“Steve, Billy! Robin’s here!”

They jump apart as if jolted with electricity, heads jerking around to see Mom and Robin standing by the open back door. While Mom goes back inside, Robin starts walking toward them, dressed like a DIY astronaut. She stops and peers into the pool, where Steve and Billy are now at least five feet apart.

“Hello, Steve. Hello, Billy Hargrove,” Robin says, blinking.

“What are you s’posed to be?” Billy says nastily. “A sentient fishbowl?”

Robin touches her white felt helmet, like she wants to take it off, and has to stop herself. Shooting Billy a dirty look, Steve scrambles out of the pool, a nauseous twist in his gut. The air on his wet skin is so cold it burns, and he dives for one of the towels folded up on a lounger, swaddling as much of himself as he can. “You look awesome, Rob. You finish your paper?”

“Well, I’ve still got to write the conclusion,” Robin responds, gaze jumping around but never quite landing anywhere, “and proofread, and type it, but I’m getting there.” She titters nervously, finally looks over at Billy, who’s pulling himself out of the pool, hissing at the cold.

“Well, I’m sure it’ll be awesome,” Steve babbles, “I mean, you’re awesome, so.” He totally forgot Robin said she might drop by. Billy’s glaring at her like she killed one of those kittens he didn’t get to keep. While also shivering violently. Steve throws a towel at him.

“Let’s go inside,” Steve says, “I’m freezing.”

In the sunroom they stand there awkwardly, Steve and Billy dripping on the floor, Robin fidgeting with the loop of white tubing hanging off the front of her costume. Mom’s voice carries from the front room, halfway through one of her favorite stories from the semester she spent in France.

“Soo. Seems like you guys have been having fun,” Robin tries.

“Be f-fun if you’d blast off,” Billy mutters through his chattering teeth.

Steve—regrets. He jabs Billy with his elbow. “Uhhh. You guys want to watch a movie? I got a couple horror flicks from Family Video, they look, good.” Before he’d invited Billy, he’d counted on holing up in the den while Mom did her thing. He doesn’t even like scary movies, ‘specially not since the Upside Down shit, but he wanted to do something in the spirit of the day.

“That sounds—fun,” Robin says.

“Oh, so fun,” Billy echoes.

“Ookay. We’re gonna go change. Meet you in the den, Rob?” Steve grabs Billy’s arm and starts hauling him away, meeting Robin’s eye and trying to convey his deep mortification. 

On the stairs, he hisses, “What is your problem?”

Billy rips his arm out of Steve’s grip and stumbles slightly, banging his shin on a stair. “Sorry I’m not _sweet_ enough,” he sneers, “Princess Steve.”

They reach the landing and Steve strides into his room, kicking aside the devil horns lying in his path. He wants to kick Billy’s ass. “Robin’s a good fucking person, she doesn’t deserve your shit.” He yanks open a dresser drawer and pulls out a pair of gray sweatpants, then gestures sharply at the open drawer. “Wear whatever, and I’ll see you downstairs, I guess.”

“Oh, don’t worry, Harrington, I’ll leave you to hang with your quirky girlfriend.” When Steve looks up, Billy’s gathering his clothes with jerky movements, still trembling from head to toe. The towel has slipped off his shoulders, and he looks amazingly small and fragile, Steve’s t-shirt plastered to his shrunken torso.

“No way, you’re too drunk to drive. And don’t even think about walking!” Steve pauses, modulates his tone. “And. She’s not my girlfriend, you moron.”

Billy turns away and peels off the t-shirt, confronting Steve with the rocky terrain of his back. “You just want her to be.”

Steve kind of laughs, high-pitched and weird. “Maybe, at one point? But trust me, we’re friends. It’s like, so platonic.” The words just spill out of him, before he can ask himself why it’s so important for Billy to understand.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.” Steve rolls his eyes to cover the shakiness that isn’t just from the damp and cold, that seems to flutter between his own ribs. Billy turns to look at him, but Steve can’t meet his eyes. “Get changed and come hang out, and act like a human being, okay?”

Downstairs in the den, Robin is sitting stiffly on the couch, the screen paused on what appears to be the trailer for Grease 2. “I made an executive decision. We’re watching Poltergeist.” 

“Robin, I’m so sorry. I told him to calm down.”

“It’s okay,” Robin murmurs. “Let’s just start the movie.”

“Uh, yeah, okay.” They sit there and watch previews with the volume too loud, and Steve feels like he did something wrong, but he’s not actually sure what it was. 

Just as the feature starts, Billy comes crashing in, clad in Steve’s sweatpants and his own double layer of shirts, holding a half-full bottle of wine he must have found somewhere. He takes a big swig while forcing himself into the space between Steve and the couch arm, leaving Steve and Robin no choice but to make room for him, despite the La-Z-Boy and the other big armchair sitting right there. Steve tries to take the wine from him, but he holds on tight, and a few red drops cascade onto the carpet; Steve winces, giving up. Robin’s costume crinkles as their arms press together, and he can feel how tense her muscles are, as tense as his own. Meanwhile, Billy sprawls on his other side, still damp and lightly shivering. Steve gets a weird urge to grab the throw blanket folded on the back of the couch and spread it over the three of them, like he could make them all friends with that single gesture.

“Aw, shit, creepy kids in nightgowns,” Billy mumbles.

After just a few minutes, Steve feels the weight at his left slump more fully into his side, and when he peeks over, yep, Billy’s passed out: head tipped against the back of the couch, wire glinting in his open mouth; wine bottle perched on his knee, dragging against his relaxed fingers. Cursing softly, Steve slides the bottle out of Billy’s grip, extracts himself so he can put the wine on the TV stand where it won’t fall and spill. Billy doesn’t stir. Steve makes eye contact with Robin, who’s watching him with her eyebrows raised, incredulous, maybe-amused. Steve starts to sit back down, but Robin says, “Steve, I’m kinda tired.”

He nods and keeps nodding. He isn’t in the mood for haunted trees and shit either. “Yeah, fair. I’m—I can drive you home.” They leave Billy snoring on the couch, but at the last minute, Steve takes the throw blanket and throws it haphazardly over him.

A painful silence settles over them once they’re in the car. The cider from earlier has long worn off, but Steve is tired, like, drained, so he concentrates on his driving. They’re halfway to Robin’s house, scattered older kids still dawdling along the streets, when she says, “So. Billy Hargrove, huh?”

“God, Rob, I’m really sorry. He’s such a fucking mess.” 

Robin says, carefully, “He does seem—troubled.” 

That compulsive nodding takes over again. “Yeah, uh, a couple weeks back Max asked me to give him a ride to the doctor, and then I started giving him rides to work. He really shouldn’t drink like that. The dumbass has liver damage!”

“So you—what. You feel bad for him?”

“I mean, yeah, I guess. Though it’s hard when he’s being such a goddamn prick.”

There’s quiet for a minute, Robin shifting restlessly in Steve’s peripheral vision. “Steve, I saw you.”

Steve’s blood runs cold. “What?”

“In the pool. It looked like you were going to—kiss.” She rushes into the stunned silence, “I don’t think your mom noticed anything. She was having a _good time_. But I saw the way you looked at each other.”

“I didn’t—he wasn’t—”

“Steve, it’s okay,” and now Robin sounds frustrated. “Who do you think you’re talking to right now?”

A crowd of kids dash across the road ahead, cackling at each other, and Steve screeches to a halt. “But it’s not _like_ that. We’re friends. Barely.”

“So he wasn’t a jerk to me because he thinks we’re dating.”

“He’s just a jerk!” Steve accelerates again.

“And he didn’t make us sit crammed on that couch because he had to be close to you, if I was.”

“Billy’s a weird guy,” Steve says weakly.

“I just don’t understand why you couldn’t tell me.” Robin’s voice comes out quiet and hoarse. “Why would you let me think I was alone?”

“Robin,” Steve says, shocked. He turns onto her shabby cul-de-sac, where celebrations have ceased entirely. “Of course you’re not alone.”

“You know what I mean.”

They arrive at Robin’s house, with its lit-up porch crowded with a hundred mismatched things, ornaments and plant pots and bicycles and too many dusty chairs. Nobody moves to get out of the car. Steve turns off the engine, pushes a shaking hand through his hair. “Look, Rob, you’re not—wrong. But it’s not the same. For me. As it is for you.”

“What does that mean?” Robin asks tightly.

Inadequate words seem to swarm Steve’s head, and he plucks them out one by one, and doesn’t know what to do with them. “I. It’s.” He covers his face with his hands. “We fooled around, once. Before.” He peels one hand from his face and waves it to indicate the dividing line in their life histories that was Starcourt on the 4th of July. “He likes me, I guess, whatever that means for him. But I’m—I loved Nancy, Robin. I want to get married and have kids. It’s not the same.”

It’s quiet for a long moment, no sounds but the two of them breathing, the wind rustling in the trees above. Steve feels wrong in every imaginable way. Robin’s voice is very soft when she speaks. “You think I don’t want to get married? That I don’t want to have kids? One day, not now,” she adds with a touch of irony.

Steve closes his eyes. “That’s not what I meant.”

“So, okay,” Robin sighs. “You fooled around with him, but you didn’t like it? A failed experiment?”

“I didn’t say I didn’t like it.” Steve’s words come out gruff.

“But you don’t like him. You liked Nancy, so you _can’t_ like him.”

“Of course I don’t like him. He’s a dick.”

“But you drive him to work and go swimming together and worry he’ll damage his liver and cover him up so he doesn’t get cold.” Robin ticks each point off on her fingers.

Steve splutters. “I mean, yeah! The guy is clearly struggling. I just—any decent person would worry about him. He doesn’t get help at home. Max tries, but, you know, she’s a kid.”

Robin doesn’t say anything for another long moment. When she does, she sits up straighter, braces her hands on her knees. “Okay, what about this. What if you can like girls and boys. Equally.” 

That doesn’t sound right. It sounds like _too much_. “You don’t,” he says, half a question.

“No. But you could. Maybe.”

It’s getting cold in the car. Steve gazes into the yard of the Buckleys’ across-the-street neighbors, watches plastic skeletons sway in the trees. A thought pops into his head, about skeletons and closets, and he makes a little laugh-like sound, his mouth feeling soft and strange. 

Eventually, Robin sighs shakily, combs her fingers through her hair. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to jump on you like that. It’s up to you. It’s, yours.”

Steve takes a deep breath and turns to look her in the eye. “I didn’t know that you felt so alone. I guess I thought—with your drama friends, and everything.” He’s not sure what he’s trying to say.

“Yeah.” Robin shrugs. “But, you know. I feel—” She looks through the windshield, up into the starry sky, white felt helmet falling back as she hugs herself. “There’s some part of me that’s so ready. To be _seen_. I wanna—kiss somebody,” her voice breaks, “but I let my mom think I’m your girlfriend.”

“Aw, Robin,” Steve says, heart aching. He reaches out, hand hovering over her shoulder, but isn’t sure. They don’t touch each other much.

“Sorry, sorry.” Robin scrubs the heels of her hands over her eyes. “God, I’m so embarrassing. I don’t even—I’m just overwhelmed.”

“Overwhelmed? It kind of seemed like, you had school and everything under control.”

“Oh, yeah, I do. Basically.” Robin’s looking out of the passenger window now, at her funny little house. “But it’s like—everyone keeps asking me about college. I have about twenty different brochures in my desk. And I don’t even know—do I want to do theater? Music? Chemistry? English? I just don’t know, and I don’t want to waste all the hours of overtime Dad worked to give me a college fund,” she rushes out, sniffling.

Steve’s jaw drops slightly. All this time, he’s been jealously thinking, _Robin can do anything_ , like that meant she was invulnerable. But here she is on the verge of a breakdown because of just that.

“Well, what were you always saying to me? You’ve got time.”

“But I _don’t_ have time. Early application deadlines start in _December_ , and if I stand a chance at the really good schools—”

“But what if you,” Steve stutters, feeling selfish, “Worst case scenario, you take a gap year?”

Robin takes a sharp breath. “I’ve got to get out of here,” she says finally, roughly.

“Yeah,” Steve agrees, understanding, suddenly. If Robin’s gonna get kissed, she needs to not be in Hawkins. “Well, maybe college isn’t the only way to get out. You could move. Get a job.”

She slowly turns to look at him. “Shit, you’re right.” She blinks. “Why have I never considered that?”

Steve sighs. “When you’re really locked into one future for yourself, it’s hard to imagine anything else.”

“Yeah.” They look into each other’s eyes for slightly longer than could be considered normal. It might be romantic, if they were different people. “Steve. Do you want to get out?”

A thrum starts up in Steve’s blood, more frantic even than when he and Billy were caught in the pool. “Maybe,” he says, swallowing. “Maybe.”

When Robin gets out of the car, she touches three fingers to his arm, like a promise. 

Steve’s head whirls as he drives back home, turning Robin’s words, and his own impressions, over and over, unable to get a hold on anything. But slowly, one thought gains traction. Before Billy ‘died’, when he looked and acted like some demonic swimsuit model, Steve could admit to himself that he wanted to do him. And lately, he’s wanted to look out for Billy, keep him as close to safe as he can be. But to feel both of those things together—it _scares_ Steve.

At home, Mom’s friends have cleared out; Mom seems to have turned in herself. There’s still half-full glasses of wine sitting around, politely folded crumb-flecked napkins on the coffee table, the cauldron of candy with a couple Bit-O-Honeys left in the bottom. Steve untwists one, pops it in his mouth and keeps walking.

Billy’s still asleep in the den. He’s shifted slightly, so that he’s half-curled with his head on the armrest, one foot still on the ground, the blanket slanted across him. It does not look comfortable. As Steve stands there staring down at him, Billy’s eye cracks open, and they just look at each other. It feels, for a stretched-out moment, like something has fallen away, leaving this deep seriousness.

Then, Billy reaches out, grabs Steve’s left hand with clumsy fingers. He pulls it close to his face and rubs his nose along the inside of Steve’s wrist, lips just brushing, shivery-hot, against Steve’s chilled skin. Then Billy’s eyes flutter shut; his fingers loosen around Steve’s wrist, and he goes back to sleep. 

Steve watches Billy’s lips part in his sleep, feels the warm circle of Billy’s slackened hand, before slowly withdrawing. He hikes up to his room, locks the door behind him. In bed, he shoves his hand down his pants, left wrist pressed over his mouth, honey-taste on his tongue; comes so fast and so hard it’s like the first time he did it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [end credits](https://open.spotify.com/track/55oL1lKtQyv7PO9tJBrgAy?si=J-22ZqhFQfeKIlZNCidakQ)


End file.
